Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

TEACHERS' SALARIES (ECONOMY CUT).

Captain ARTHUR EVANS: I beg to ask leave to present a Petition signed by 338 teachers who are electors in the South Division of Cardiff City. The petitioners humbly pray this honourable House that such provision may be made, by the restoration of the grant-in-aid of teachers' salaries in force prior to the 1st October, 1931, or otherwise, as will enable local education authorities to resume payment forthwith of the appropriate standard scale salaries to their teachers in full accordance with the terms and conditions of the Burnham Award, as approved by the Board of Education and in operation prior to the aforesaid date, and that the petitioners may have such other relief in the premises as to this honourable House may seem fit.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Corby (Northants) and District Water Bill,

Read the Third time, and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions — COAL INDUSTRY.

EXPORT TRADE (FINLAND AND SWEDEN).

Miss WARD: 3.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he can make any statement as to the extent that Finland is carrying out her obligations under the coal provisions of the Anglo-Finnish Trade Agreement; and whether he can give the House any information on the position?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Ernest Brown): The coal provisions of the Anglo-Finnish Trade Agreement re-
late to a yearly period, so that no question of their fulfilment or non-fulfilment can arise at present. I have no reason to doubt that 75 per cent. of the annual imports of coal into Finland will in fact be derived from the United Kingdom, and in this connection I understand that a Measure for the regulation of coal imports has now received a Third Reading in the Finnish Parliament.

Miss WARD: Has the hon. Gentleman's attention been directed to the Press reports in this connection?

Mr. BROWN: Yes, and I deprecate the statement that has appeared in certain sections of the Press; it has done harm.

OVERTIME, ABERDARE.

Mr. GEORGE HALL: 1.
asked the Secretary for Mines whether he can now make a statement concerning the working of overtime at the River Level Colliery, Aberdare?

Mr. E. BROWN: Inquiries into the overtime worked at this pit over a period of 12 weeks show that the amount of overtime is less than 0.5 per cent. of ordinary time worked. The management claim that in all cases the overtime was permissible under the Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1908. In one case, however, namely, when 11 men worked overtime for three hours each clearing coal at the pit bottom, I do not agree that the overtime worked was permissible, but since the management have undertaken not to work overtime for this purpose in future, I have decided not to take action on this occasion.

Mr. HALL: Can the hon. Member inform me whether the representatives of the workers were consulted during the course of the inquiry?

Mr. BROWN: The hon. Member knows the difficulties there are, because this is a matter of management.

Mr. HALL: The workmen's representatives are able to give information dealing with overtime, and why should they Trot be consulted?

MACHINES.

Mr. DAGGAR: 4.
asked the Secretary for Mines the number of coal-cutting machines and conveyors in use in the mines of Great Britain and South Wales, respectively, for the years 1931, 1932, and
1933, also the quantity and percentage of the total output cut by machines for the same years?

Mr. E. BROWN: As the reply involves a statistical table, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

—
Great Britain.
South Wales and Monmouthshire.


1931.
1932.
1933.*
1931.
1932.
1933.*


Number of Coal-cutters in use
7,371
7,137
7,149
484
437
454


Number of Conveyors in use
3,953
4,120
4,756
932
875
937


Coal cut by machinery:








(i) Quantity (thousand tons)
76,864
80,286
87,830
4,356
4,093
4,406


(ii) Percentage Proportion of total output.
35
38
42
12
12
13


* Provisional figures.

Oral Answers to Questions — MOTOR SPIRIT (UNITED KINGDOM PRODUCTION).

Mr. MITCHESON: 5
asked the Secretary for Mines if he can furnish an estimate of the United Kingdom production of all forms of motor spirit in 1933; and what percentage this constitutes of our total consumption in that year?

Mr. E. BROWN: It is estimated that about 43,000,000 gallons of motor spirit were produced in Great Britain from indigenous materials in 1933. This represents about 3¾ per cent. of the estimated consumption of motor spirit in that year.

Oral Answers to Questions — FORESHORE RENTS, MABLE-THORPE.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: 10.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will state how the negotiations over the proposal of the Board of Trade to increase the rents of foreshore by 50,000 per cent. in the neighbourhood of Mablethorpe is progressing?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the BOARD of TRADE (Dr. Burgin): Negotiations for the settlement of a fair consideration to be paid by the urban district council for a lease or conveyance of the foreshore at Mablethorpe have been in abeyance since November last, as part of this foreshore may have to be reserved for the use of the Air Council.

Mr. T. SMITH: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the steady decline in the number of mineworkers employed, as a result of this mechanisation; and is this matter receiving his attention?

Mr. BROWN: Yes, Sir.

Following is the answer:

Oral Answers to Questions — INSURANCE LAW.

Mr. LYONS: 11.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he can indicate the changes in the law of insurance that he proposes to initiate?

Dr. BURGIN: I cannot at this stage anticipate the terms of future proposals, but it may be assumed that any general insurance legislation which may be introduced will be based, with due regard to recent experience, on the draft Insurance Undertakings Bill appended to the Report of the Departmental Committee, generally known as the Clauson Committee, which was issued as Cmd. 2820 in 1927.

Mr. LYONS: While thanking my hon. Friend for his answer, may I ask him whether it is intended by the President of the Board of Trade to deal in one comprehensive Measure with all questions of compulsory workmen's compensation insurance in the case of all trades?

Dr. BURGIN: I think that, if my hon. and learned Friend wants to ask that question, he had better put it on the Paper. It is a rather different question.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

RUBBER FOOTWEAR INDUSTRY.

Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS: 12.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if, having regard to the fact that the import
of rubber footwear in February of this year from Hongkong and Singapore were approximately 250,000 pairs as compared with one-eighth of that number in February of last year, he can state what steps he proposes to take to protect the British rubber footwear industry from this growing competition?

Dr. BURGIN: I cannot add anything to the reply which was given to my hon. Friend on the 6th February.

CARPETS (IMPORTS).

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: 13.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware that in the first two months of the present year the imports of carpets from Belgium were 245,423 square yards, as compared with seven square yards in the same months of 1932; and what steps it is proposed to take to protect the British carpet industry against this increase in imports?

Dr. BURGIN: I am aware of the figures to which my hon. Friend draws attention. It is open to the industry to apply to the Import Duties Advisory Committee for an increase in the duty on these goods.

Mr. MANDER: Is not Hong Kong still part of the British Empire?

Dr. BURGIN: The hon. Member has mistaken the question.

CUT FLOWERS (IMPORTS).

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: 14.
asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the increase in the value of cut flowers from the Netherlands and Belgium during the month ended February, 1934, over that of the previous year?

Dr. BURGIN: During February, 1934, the value of the imports of cut flowers from the Netherlands was £29,669 and from Belgium £301. Imports of fresh flowers during February, 1933, amounted to £29,080 from the Netherlands and £155 from Belgium. The figures for the two periods are not precisely comparable, as those for February, 1934, may include a small amount of dried flowers.

Mr. WILLIAMS: In any negotiations with foreign Powers on this and other matters, will my hon. Friend remember that this is a very highly organised and efficient industry?

Dr. BURGIN: Certainly.

NEW FACTORIES.

Mr. STOURTON: 16.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can now estimate the number of factories erected during the year 1933; the total employment they give; and how many of these new enterprises are controlled by foreign capital?

Dr. BURGIN: I would refer my hon. Friend to the answer given on the 6th March to the hon. Member for Widnes (Mr. Robinson).

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: When the hon. Gentleman is giving figures of new factories opened, will he take into account the fact that such figures are meaningless unless we get also figures showing the number of factories closed during the same period?

Dr. BURGIN: No answer that I give will ever be meaningless. If there is ever a desire for the figures of factories shut as well as factories opened, and that desire is made clear on the Order Paper, an answer will be forthcoming.

Mr. STOURTON: 17.
asked the President of the Board of Trade how many of the 646 new factories erected during the year 1932 are controlled by foreign capital?

Dr. BURGIN: I regret that the desired information is not available.

POLAND.

Mr. HEPWORTH: 31.
asked the Secretary to the Overseas Trade Department whether his representative in Warsaw is assisting the British industrial delegation now visiting Poland to explore the possibilities of mutual trade increase; and whether he will instruct him to bring to the notice of the negotiating parties the unsatisfactory importation into this country of cheap Polish clothing?

Dr. BURGIN: The United Kingdom Trade Commission to Poland has received all possible assistance from the Commercial Secretary to His Majesty's Embassy at Warsaw. As regards the second part of the question, the work of the mission was confined to exploring the possibilities of increasing United Kingdom export trade to Poland.

PROFIT-SHARING SCHEMES.

Lieut.-Commander BOWER: 35.
asked the Minister of Labour if he will state
the number of public companies and firms, other than co-operative societies, which have in operation schemes for the participation of employés in profits and the number of employés participating therein?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson): At the end of 1932, the latest date for which statistics are available, 293 public companies and firms, other than co-operative societies, were known to have in operation schemes for the participation of employés, on a defined basis, in the profits of the undertakings concerned. About 185,000 employés were participating in these schemes. These figures and other statistics relating to profit-sharing were published in the "Ministry of Labour Gazette" for June, 1933.

IMPORT DUTIES (DRIED FOLIAGE).

Mr. JANNER: 49.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that under the Additional Import Duties (No. 5) Order, 1932, customs duties are now levied on dried foliage and similar products which are the material for the production of medicinal preparations, whereas under the Horticultural Products (Emergency Customs Duties), which the above order replaced, such duties were not levied, and that application was made to the Import Duties Advisory Committee on 14th December, 1933, for an amending order; and whether, as trade in these products is almost at a standstill, he will press for an early decision in this matter?

Captain AUSTIN HUDSON (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. The Additional Import Duties (No. 8) Order, 1934, which was laid on the Table yesterday, provides for the removal of the additional duty on dried foliage, etc., of the kinds used solely for the manufacture of drugs or medicines.

EMPIRE TEA (RUSSIAN PURCHASES).

Mr. NOEL LINDSAY (for Mr. CULVERWELL): 7 and 15.
asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) whether purchases by the Russian authorities of British Empire teas, as a result of the trade agreement, have been made in London, or in India or Ceylon; and whether they are additional to the
average total Russian purchases of tea made in India or Ceylon during the past two years;
(2) whether any material increase in the sale of British Empire teas to the Russian Government has resulted from the Russian Trade Agreement?

Dr. BURGIN: The information asked for is not available.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

IMPORTED BUTTER.

Mr. MITCHESON: 19.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the weight and fresh-milk equivalent of butter imported in 1933 from foreign countries with which we have not entered into any treaty arrangements specifically covering butter since the passage of the Import Duties Act?

Dr. BURGIN: 1,065,000 cwts. of butter were imported during 1933 from foreign countries with which no trade agreements in which butter is specifically mentioned have been concluded since the passage of the Import Duties Act. The fresh milk equivalent of this amount of butter is 281,353,000 gallons.

Mr. LYONS: Can my hon. Friend say how this compares with the amount of butter that we have imported from New Zealand?

Dr. BURGIN: Certainly not without a good deal of notice.

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: Is not the fresh milk equivalent of this amount of butter vastly in excess of the surplus anticipated by the Minister of Agriculture?

Dr. BURGIN: That is a matter for another Minister.

Major MILLS: 39 and 40.
asked the Minister of Agriculture (1) by what number of cwts. the imports of butter from Sweden in 1933 exceeded the amount below which their quota is not to be reduced under our trade agreement with them; and whether he proposes, in the interests of British producers, to take steps to see that in 1934 the minimum number of cwts. allowed them is not materially exceeded;
(2) by what number of cwts. the imports of butter from Denmark in 1933 exceeded the amount below which their
quota is not to be reduced under our trade agreement with them; and whether he proposes, in the interests of British producers, to take steps to see that in 1934 the minimum number of cwts. allowed them is not materially exceeded?

Captain Sir GEORGE BOWYER: I have been asked to reply. The minimum quantities referred to do not apply except in the event of the supply of imported butter being regulated, which is not at present the case. Imports of butter in 1933 from Sweden and Denmark exceeded the minimum quantities provided for in the trade agreements with those countries by 41,777 cwts. and 219,119 cwts. respectively. With regard to the interests of British producers, I would remind my hon. and gallant Friend of the statement outlining the Government's milk policy which my right hon. Friend made on 22nd February.

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: Is the hon. and gallant Member aware that imported butter is seriously affecting butter made on British farms?

Sir G. BOWYER: Yes, Sir, I am aware of that fact.

RUSSIAN CEREALS (IMPORTS).

Mr. H. WILLIAMS: 37.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the imports of wheat, oats, and barley in the first two months of the year from Soviet Russia were 3,479,422 cwts. as compared with 457,062 cwts. in the same period last year; and what steps he proposes to take to deal with this growing competition to British agriculture?

The MINISTER of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I am aware of the facts referred to in the first part of the question, but I would point out to my hon. Friend that the total imports during the period in question declined by 5 per cent. The Government has taken and is taking energetic steps to safeguard the interests of the home cereal industry, but it would not be possible within the limit of question and answer to describe these steps in detail.

Mr. BOOTHBY: Is my right hon. Friend aware that oats subsidised by foreign Governments are being imported into this country, and does he propose to take any steps to prohibit their importation?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am afraid I could not enter into any discussion with my hon. Friend by question and answer. The question of the subsidisation of foreign oats is one of the most difficult in the whole range of our import duties.

Captain ARCHIBALD RAMSAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman listen to further representations on the subject?

Mr. ELLIOT: Certainly.

Mr. LYONS: Will the right hon. Gentleman stop the importation of subsidised oats?

Mr. ELLIOT: As I was saying to my hon. Friend the Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), the House knows well that the subsidisation of oats is one of the most difficult questions to determine.

Mr. LAWSON: Are these oats in part payment for our herring?

BULBS (IMPORTS).

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: 38.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that the increase in the number of bulbs imported from the Netherlands during the two months ended February, 1934, over the two months ended February, 1932, amounts to more than 100 per cent.; and what steps he proposes to take to protect British bulb-growers?

Mr. ELLIOT: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative, though I should not be prepared to draw inferences from the volume of imports during only two months in the year. In reply to the second part I would remind my hon. Friend that the statutory procedure provides for consideration of these matters by the Import Duties Advisory Committee in the first instance.

Mr. WILLIAMS: In view of the very difficult state of the trade at the present time, will the right hon. Gentleman, in the interests of agriculture, look into this matter very carefully, and see to it that British industry is more efficiently protected?

Mr. ELLIOT: Representations should be made in the first place to the Import Duties Advisory Committee.

Mr. de ROTHSCHILD: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a great number of the bulbs that come from the
Netherlands are diseased and are causing very grave unrest in the minds of horticulturists in this country, and that from the point of view of the well-being of the industry—not only from the point of view of protection—it is important that this matter should be looked into?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am interested by the careful distinction drawn by the hon. Member, and I am not disposed to draw such a distinction, but I shall be most happy to examine from a sanitary point of view any evidence which he can lay before me.

Mr. LOUIS SMITH: May I ask my right hon. Friend if he does not agree that the limit to be aimed at should be to grow all the bulbs in this country which this country needs?

Mr. LYONS: Will my right hon. Friend put a time limit on the consideration of the Import Duties Advisory Committee?

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND.

HOUSING.

Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: 20.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware of the complaint of residents in the rural areas of the counties of Moray and Nairn of the lack of housing accommodation; the number of houses that have been built by the local authorities in these two counties in each of the past three years; and whether the local authorities have any difficulty in securing land for building purposes from any of the local landowners?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. As regards the second part, the County Council of Moray built no houses in 1931, and 11 and 10 houses in 1932 and 1933 respectively, while the County Council of Nairn built no houses in 1931 and 1932, and four in 1933. As regards the last part of the question, my right hon. Friend's attention has not been drawn to any difficulty such as is referred to. I may add that, on the information before him, my right hon. Friend was not satisfied with the adequacy of the five years' programmes submitted for the two counties. He accordingly communicated with the
county councils, and investigations and discussions are at present proceeding in the matter.

Mr. GRAHAM: 21.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that at the annual meeting of the Scottish National Housing and Town Planning Committee, held at Peebles on 2nd March, 1934, a resolution was passed that private enterprise under present circumstances is unable to erect houses for the working classes at reasonable rents, and that many local authorities in Scotland are unable to do so because of the small subsidy provided by the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1933; and whether he will take steps to augment the subsidy and thus make possible the provision of houses, as contemplated by the Act, without unduly burdening the local authorities?

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: 24.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether his attention has been drawn to a resolution passed by the Scottish National Housing and Town Planning Committee to the effect that private enterprise is unable to erect houses to be let to the working classes at reasonable rents, that many local authorities are unable to do so with the modified subsidy provided by the Housing Act of 1933, and that a housing subsidy varying in accordance with local conditions is required; and whether he proposes to introduce legislation for this purpose before the end of the present Session?

Mr. SKELTON: My right hon. Friend is aware of the passing of the resolution referred to. The subsidy of £3 a house under the Act of 1933, which is available only in Scotland, is intended to encourage the provision of houses for low-paid wage-earners living in overcrowded conditions. As the right hon. and hon. Gentlemen are aware, measures for dealing with the whole question of overcrowding are at present under the consideration of the Government, who recognise the special situation of Scotland with regard to this problem.

RATING SYSTEM.

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: 23.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has received a copy of the report of the Scottish National Develop-
ment Council on Rating Reform; and whether he proposes to take any steps to reform the present system along the lines of either the majority or the minority recommendations, or otherwise?

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins): I have received, and given careful consideration to, the report referred to in the question. Alteration of the existing rating system on the lines of either the majority or the minority recommendations presents very serious difficulties, and I cannot hold out any hope of early legislation on the subject. I am, however, considering the question of amending the Valuation Acts in certain respects.

POLICE (GAZETTE).

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 25.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he has yet received the views of police authorities in Scotland as to the establishment of a police gazette?

Sir G. COLLINS: I regret that I have not yet received final replies from all police authorities on this subject.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: In view of the fact that my right hon. Friend asked for this information some four months ago, is he satisfied that his request is being complied with with due attention by the police authorities who have failed to answer so far?

Sir G. COLLINS: I regret that delay has arisen. It may be that it has arisen in securing unanimous consent. I can tell my hon. Friend that 90 per cent. of the police authorities have approved of a scheme, and I can assure him that we shall exercise as much pressure as we can to get the other 5 per cent. to agree.

SUNDAY TRADING.

Mr. DAVID MASON: 26.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether, in view of the generally expressed desire for an inquiry into the conditions of Sunday trading in Scotland, he will take the necessary steps to institute such an inquiry?

Sir G. COLLINS: I am not satisfied that an inquiry of the nature suggested would be justified at the present time.

MATERNITY WELFARE, WESTERN ISLES.

Mr. T. RAMSAY: 27.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that the wife of James Maclennan, Isle of Scarp, who was delivered of a baby by an untrained midwife at Scarp on 13th January, was conveyed over the island, the sea, and the uncompleted Hushinish road on a stretcher to a motor car for transport to Tarbert, Harris, 18 miles away, on 14th January; that ultimately she was conveyed by car to Lewis Hospital, Stornoway, where she was delivered of a second baby at nine p.m. on 15th January; and, seeing that the people of Scarp have repeatedly asked for a trained nurse, pier, and road transport facilities, what action he proposes to take in the matter?

Mr. SKELTON: I understand that the facts of the case are generally as stated. I am informed that some time before the birth the doctor visited Mrs. Maclennan and strongly urged her to go to Tarbert for her confinement. He again saw her a few days before the birth and repeated this advice. Neither the doctor nor the trained nurse was summoned until after the first child was born. Within two hours of receiving the telephone message asking for assistance they reached the island and under the doctor's personal supervision the patient was removed to the hospital where she was successfully delivered of the second child. As regards the last part of the question, a doctor and nurse are available in Tarbert and the installation of a telephone between Tarbert and Hushinish has reduced the difficulty of summoning them to Scarp to a minimum. The Department of Health are satisfied that these arrangements are adequate. The provision of improved transport facilities is a matter in the first instance for the County Council of Inverness. Any application which that body may make for assistance from State funds for that purpose will be carefully considered by the Departments concerned.

Mr. RAMSAY: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the doctor who gave that information also mentioned that, if a district nurse was given, they would be very lucky indeed compared with other parts of Harris, and is he also aware that many women in the Western Isles view with agonising dread the approaching time of child-birth on account of their isolation,
the difficulties of transport and the inadequacy and uncertainty of medical and surgical facilities?

Mr. SKELTON: I think if in similar circumstances they would take the advice preferred to Mrs. Maclennan and go to a proper home in time, many of the difficulties incidental to life on a scattered island would be removed.

EDUCATION (ADVANCED DIVISION COURSES).

Mr. MAXTON: 28.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many teachers with qualifications under Chapter V of the Regulations for the Training of Teachers were employed in advanced-division schools or courses in Scotland for the years 1929, 1931, 1932, and 1933, respectively?

Mr. SKELTON: The number of teachers qualified under Chapter V of the Regulations for the Training of Teachers who were employed in schools with separately staffed advanced divisions was 565 at 31st March, 1933. The corresponding numbers in the same schools were 407 in 1929, 478 in 1931 and 505 in 1932. The number of such teachers employed in advanced division courses that are not separately staffed is not available and cannot be obtained without an expenditure of time that does not seem to me to be justified.

Mr. MAXTON: Is any attempt being made to raise the standard of qualifications of teachers employed in these schools?

Mr. SKELTON: The hon. Gentleman will see, when he looks at the answer that I have given, that the number of teachers is constantly increasing.

Mr. MAXTON: If the hon. Gentleman will look at his own figures, he will see that they are going up and down.

SCHOOLS (CLEANING AND PAINTING).

Mr. MAXTON: 29.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he is aware that complaints have been made in reports that recent economies in educational expenditure have resulted in inadequate cleaning and repainting of schools to an extent injurious to the health and happiness of the children; and what action he proposes to take to remedy this?

Mr. SKELTON: The reports of His Majesty's Inspectors do not support any suggestion of the kind referred to in the question, and I have no reason to think that this important aspect of school provision is being neglected. But if the hon. Member has any other reports in mind I shall be glad to look into the matter if he will let me have the particulars.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE (WIRELESS TELEGRAMS, INDIA AND KENYA).

Mr. LYONS: 30.
asked the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the inconvenience arising from the fact that all wireless messages sent to England from India and Kenya have to be paid for on a gold franc basis, he will direct that all inter-Imperial wireless messages transmitted by the Imperial and International Communications, Limited, shall in future be assessed and paid for on a basis of sterling or the currency of the country of origin?

The ASSISTANT POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Ernest Bennett): The arrangements for the assessment and collection of charges for telegrams handed in at telegraph offices in India and Kenya for transmission overseas are under the control of the Administrations of those countries, and I have no power to intervene in the matter as my hon. Friend suggests.

Mr. LYONS: Will the hon. Gentleman impress upon the Governments concerned the vital importance to-day of maintaining the superiority of sterling and allowing no other currency to compete with it in the manner that I have indicated?

Sir E. BENNETT: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to pursue the question, he had better address questions to the Secretary of State for India and the Secretary of State for the Colonies.

Mr. MAXTON: Will the hon. Gentleman inform the House where his chief is to-day?

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT (ROAD ACCIDENTS).

Mr. HEPWORTH: 32.
asked the Minister of Transport whether his attention has been called to the loss of four lives owing to collisions at cross-roads and dangerous corners at the week-end; and
whether his Department investigates all such fatalities with a view to ensuring that the proper amount of road signs and warnings is displayed?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam): Road fatalities are unhappily so numerous that it is not practicable for my Department to investigate them individually, but whenever such an accident is reported as being due to defects in a road or to lack of adequate signs, the matter is taken up with the highway authority. My hon. Friend has recently communicated again with all highway authorities with regard to traffic signs and other measures for promoting safety on the roads.

Oral Answers to Questions — COTTON INDUSTRY (WAGE AGREEMENTS).

Mr. MANDER: 34.
asked the Minister of Labour if he is now able to state the action proposed to be taken by the Government as a result of the joint deputation from the organisations of cotton manufacturers and operative weavers asking for the legislative help of the Government to secure the observation of the industries wage agreements?

Mr. HUDSON: I am afraid that I cannot add anything to the reply I gave to the hon. and gallant Member for Ardwick (Captain Fuller) on 15th March.

Mr. MANDER: What is the present position, and how long will it be before some decision is arrived at?

Mr. HUDSON: As I informed the hon. Member for Ardwick (Captain Fuller), it is a matter for some active consideration, and it is not yet possible to announce a decision.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

EMPLOYMENT EXCHANGES.

Mr. MITCHESON: 36.
asked the Minister of Labour if he can furnish a list of Employment Exchanges in the London area not belonging to the Ministry of Labour Employment Exchanges, but which are recognised by his Department?

Mr. HUDSON: I am not clear what my hon. Friend has in mind and should
be glad if he would communicate with me. I may say, however, that there is nothing that could be described as a list of unofficial Exchanges recognised by the Ministry.

CHILDBEN'S ALLOWANCES.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: 46.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has considered the petition from the town council of Clydebank in favour of the Government increasing the allowance to the children of the unemployed from 2s. to 3s. a week; and what does he propose to do about it?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I have seen the letter from the Town Council of Clydebank on this matter. I have nothing to add to the statements upon this subject made during the Debates on the Committee stage of the Unemployment Bill.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is not the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that 26 different town councils and county councils in Scotland are in favour of this increase?

Mr. MAXTON: The Archbishop of York too.

BENEFIT (ECONOMY CUTS).

Mr. KIRKWOOD: 47.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is now in a position to give an assurance that the first use to be made of the surplus realised for the financial year 1933–34 will be to restore all the cuts in unemployment pay?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot anticipate the Budget statement.

Oral Answers to Questions — JUSTICES OF THE PEACE (WOMEN).

Mr. MANDER: 41.
asked the Attorney-General what petty sessional divisions are still without women magistrates; and what progress has been made in recent months in providing for the presence of women magistrates in all children's courts?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Donald Somervell): As regards the first part of the question, on 14th December last my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary gave the most recent figures derived from information specially asked for from 986 Petty Sessional Divisions. It is too early to ask for another return. As regards the second part, I am in-
formed by my Noble Friend, the Lord Chancellor, that a large number of women have been added to the various Commissions of the Peace in recent months. Those who are specially qualified for dealing with juvenile cases are eligible for appointment to the juvenile court panels under the Juvenile Courts (Constitution) Rules, 1934, which my Noble Friend made on the 13th March, enabling the justices under the Juvenile Courts (Constitution) Rules, 1933, to add to the panels any specially qualified justices at any time.

Mr. MANDER: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman in a postion to say how many women have been added, or have we to wait until the circular is published?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I have not actually got the number before me. The difficulty in giving the figures is that my Noble Friend knows the number added to the County Commission, but has not the details as to the petty sessional divisions to which they may be allotted.

Mr. JANNER: Can my hon. and learned Friend say whether inquiries will be made from time to time as to the position?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL: I can assure my hon. Friend that my Noble Friend will keep his eye on the position.

Oral Answers to Questions — DANUBIAN BASIN.

Mr. MABANE: 42.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any fresh proposals have been made to His Majesty's Government or to the League of Nations for dealing with the problem of the Danubian basin, as a result of the recent conversations in Rome between the heads of the Italian, Austrian, and Hungarian Governments?

The LORD PRIVY SEAL (Mr. Eden): No, Sir.

Mr. MABANE: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any official information has been received by His Majesty's Government as to the nature of the agreements made in Rome during the weekend?

Mr. EDEN: The position is as stated by my right hon. Friend yesterday.

Oral Answers to Questions — HUNGARY.

Mr. MANDER: 44.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the Government adheres to the declaration issued on 4th February, 1920, by the principal allied Powers, and subsequently repeated by the conference of ambassadors, that a Hapsburg restoration could not be considered as a question solely interesting Hungary and that they would neither recognise nor tolerate such a restoration?

Mr. EDEN: No circumstances have arisen which, in the opinion of His Majesty's Government, call for a statement on this subject.

Mr. MANDER: Do I understand from that answer that there has been no deviation from the policy then laid down?

Mr. EDEN: The hon. Member had better understand what I have said.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED STATES (BRITISH DEBT).

Mr. LYONS: 45.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the position of the American Debt situation; and whether negotiations are now proceeding or whether it is intended they should be resumed?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: I would refer my hon. Friend to the replies which were given to the hon. Members for East Fulham (Mr. Wilmot) and East Cardiff (Mr. Temple Morris) on the 29th January and 12th March, respectively, to which I have nothing to add.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT CONTRACTS.

Lieut.-Commander BOWER: 48.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in relation to all Government contracts, he will provide for the publication of the names and accepted prices of successful contractors?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: As a general rule the names of successful tenderers for Government contracts over £500 are published, but I am advised that publication of contract prices would be against the public interest.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

LIVERPOOL.

Miss RATHBONE: 50.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that
the housing committee of Liverpool City Council is asking the permission of the council to increase the corporation contribution allowed for in the estimates in respect of houses completed under the 1924 Housing Act from £11,810 to £31,650; and whether, in view of the fact that the Liverpool Corporation has adopted no method of carrying out the principle laid down in Circulars 1334 and 1138 of the Ministry, that the benefit of subsidies should not be given to tenants who do not need them nor be continued for longer than they need them, this proposal to increase the rate charge on Liverpool houses has his approval?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Mr. Shakespeare): My right hon. Friend's attention has not been called to a proposed increase in the corporation's estimates in respect of houses erected under the Act of 1924. It would not be proper for him to express an opinion upon a recommendation of a committee to the council. Subject to the rents charged in respect of the houses not exceeding in the aggregate an amount ascertained in the manner prescribed by the Act, any deficiency, after allowing for the Exchequer subsidy, is the responsibility of the local authority and is not a matter for my right hon. Friend's approval.

Mr. RATHBONE: Is the hon. Member aware that since this question was put down the city council has consented to the proposed increase, which averages 3d. per week for each of the tenants relieved, and does he consider that that is a profitable use to make of the subsidy?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: If the council has adopted the report of the Committee no doubt we shall be in a position to know to what cause the increase is due, and I will consult with the hon. Lady at a later stage.

TENANTS (RENT DIFFERENTIATION).

Miss RATHBONE: 51.
asked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the heavy burden on the taxpayer involved in housing subsidies and the insufficiency everywhere of the supply of subsidised houses to suit the means of the poorer tenants, he will consider taking steps to enforce on local authorities who disregard his circulars the principle that rent subsidies must be so used as to benefit those who need them?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: According to my hon. Friend's information this principle is generally observed. The question whether any particular method of rent differentiation should be adopted is a matter which is left under the Housing Acts to the discretion of the local authority.

Miss RATHBONE: Will the hon. Member say why the method is left to the local authorities, and are the local authorities justified in using no method whatever to see that the rent relief is not given to those who do not need it, in view of the fact that by far the greater part of the money comes not from the rates, but from the taxes?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Parliament laid down certain conditions which fixed the level of rents under various Acts, but it is left to the discretion of local authorities to carry out the principle of differentiation, and, What being so, I cannot wear a black shirt and enforce a principle which was left to the discretion of local authorities.

GREAT YARMOUTH.

Mr. HICKS: 52.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that repairs to the 833 houses and 56 flats built by the local authority of Great Yarmouth since 1921 cost during the year 1933–34 the sum of £3,694; whether he will cause inquiry to be made as to the necessity for the spending of this sum on comparatively new houses; and if he is satisfied that there is efficient supervision over this expenditure?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: Expenditure of this kind is not reported to my right hon. Friend by the local authority, but as on the facts stated it barely exceeds £4 per house he sees no prima facie reason for regarding it as excessive for a particular year.

Mr. HICKS: Does not the Minister think that, for the period of the life of these houses, the sum spread over that number of houses is particularly excessive?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: As I have said, we have not received information as to the expenditure, but it may well be that it is periodical expenditure, for painting, for example, and £4 a house does not appear to be excessive.

Mr. HICKS: Will the Minister make inquiries, in so far as he says that they have no information regarding the actual figures, to see whether the figures submitted are accurate?

Mr. SHAKESPEARE: As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are the district auditors, and, if there is any irregularity, our attention is called to the matter. We have never had any complaints as far as Great Yarmouth is concerned.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOLOMON ISLANDS.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: 53.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any reports have been received either from the High Commissioner or the resident officer administering the Solomon Islands regarding the outbreak of assaults by natives on white women in the British Solomon Islands and other protectorates in the South Seas; whether the British High Commissioner for the Western Pacific has been consulted; and whether it is intended to take any action? May I take this opportunity of congratulating the right hon. Gentleman on his return to health?

The SECRETARY of STATE for the COLONIES (Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister): I am much obliged to the hon. Member. May I also say how much I appreciate the many kind messages which I have received from Members in all parts of the House?
The High Commissioner for the Western Pacific informs me that he has been in consultation with the Resident Commissioner of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate in regard to two cases which occurred in the Protectorate. I am not aware that any incidents have occurred in the other groups within his jurisdiction. I have been in telegraphic communication with the High Commissioner, who is addressing me fully by despatch on the adequacy of the present law.

Mr. MACLEAN: Will the report be made known to Parliament?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: I would not like to say that I will lay on the Table of the House a despatch, part of which might be confidential, but I will give the House the general tenor of the despatch.

Oral Answers to Questions — SUGAR SITUATION (LONDON MEETING).

Mr. HOLDSWORTH: 64.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any agreement was reached at the international meeting in London, of the representatives of sugar-producing interests; and, if so, what was its nature?

Sir P. CUNLIFFE-LISTER: The meeting was attended by representatives of the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the sugar-exporting countries participating in the agreement known as the "Chadbourne Agreement." Its purpose was to explore the possibility of a wider agreement on sugar, with a view to holding a more general conference if there appeared reasonable prospects of agreement. The position was thoroughly explored, but it was not possible for the conference to recommend the summoning of any further meeting at present, pending developments in connection with proposals mow before the United States Congress, and the allocation of export quotas among the Chadbourne countries. No question arose of any formal agreement being concluded at this conference.

Oral Answers to Questions — REGENT'S PARK (ST. JOHN'S LODGE).

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE (for Sir CYRIL COBB): 55.
asked the First Commissioner of Works whether, in view of his difficulty in arriving at a decision, although the matter has been under discussion for nearly 10 years, he will invite some Members of the House to confer with him as to what use the main house of St. John's Lodge, Regent's Park, should be put, or whether it should be pulled down and the site added to the gardens of the park?

Major GEORGE DAVIES (Lord of the Treasury): I have been asked to reply. My right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works will be glad to discuss this question at any time with my hon. Friend if he so wishes.

Oral Answers to Questions — NEW MEMBER MAKES AFFIRMATION REQUIRED BY LAW.

George Alexander Morrison, esquire, M.A., LL.D., for the University of St. Andrews, the University of Glasgow, the University of Aberdeen, and the University of Edinburgh.

HOME SETTLEMENT BILL,

"to make provision for settlement of persons on the land in the United Kingdom," presented by Sir Thomas Rosbotham; supported by Mrs. Ward, Sir Francis Acland, Lieut.-Colonel Sandeman Allen, Mr. Strauss, and Mr. Holford Knight; to be read a Second Time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 84.]

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 259; Noes, 36.

Division No. 175.]
AYES.
[3.28 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Lindsay, Noel Ker


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Lister, Rt. Hon. Sir Philip Cunllffe


Albery, Irving James
Erskine, Lord (Weston-super-Mare)
Locker-Lampson, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd.Gr'n)


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Ersklne-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Lockwood, John C. (Hackney, C.)


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Essenhigh, Reginald Clara
Lovat-Fraser, James Alexander


Applin. Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.
Evans, Capt. Arthur (Cardiff, S.)
Lyons, Abraham Montagu


Bailey, Eric Alfred George
Evans, R. T. (Carmarthen)
Mabane, William


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Fermoy, Lord
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (ParticK)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Fleming, Edward Lascelies
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)


Beauchamp, Sir Brograve Campbell
Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)


Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th.C.)
Foot, Isaac (Cornwall, Bodmin)
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.


Benn. Sir Arthur Shirley
Fox, Sir Gifford
Maclay, Hon. Joseph Paton


Bennett, Capt. Sir Ernest Nathaniel
Fremantle, Sir Francis
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)


Bernays, Robert
Gillett, Sir George Masterman
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ian


Birchall, Major Sir John Dearman
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Macqulsten, Frederick Alexander


Bllndell, James
Glossop, C. W. H.
Maitland, Adam


Boothby, Robert John Graham
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest


Borodale, Viscount
Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot


Bossom, A. C.
Goldie, Noel B.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.


Boulton, W. W.
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Manningham-Buller, Lt.-Col. Sir M.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Granville, Edgar
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Grattan-Doyle, Sir Nicholas
Marsden. Commander Arthur


Boyce, H. Leslie
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Mason, David M. (Edinburgh, E.)


Brass, Captain Sir William
Grigg, Sir Edward
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Broadbent, Colonel John
Grimston, R. V.
Mills. Sir Frederick (Leyton, E.)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Gunston, Captain D. W.
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)


Brown, Ernest (Lelth)
Guy, J. C. Morrison
Milne, Charles


Browne, Captain A. C.
Hacking, Rt. Hon. Douglas H.
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)


Buchan, John
Hall, Capt. W. D'Arcy (Brecon)
Mitcheson, G. G.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)


Burghley, Lord
Hamilton, Sir R.W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Moreing, Adrian C.


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Hannon, Patrick Joseph Henry
Morris, Owen Temple (Cardiff, E.)


Burnett, John George
Harbord, Arthur
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Harris, Sir Percy
Morrison, G. A. (Scottish Univer'ties)


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hartland, George A.
Morrison, William Shepherd


Castlereagh, Viscount
Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Munro, Patrick


Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Nation. Brigadier-General J. J. H.


Cazalet, Thelma (Islington, E.)
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Nicholson. Rt. Hn. W. G. (Peters'lld)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. N. (Edgbaston)
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsford)
North, Edward T.


Chapman, Sir Samuel (Edinburgh, S.)
Heneage, Lieut.-Colonel Arthur P.
Nunn, William


Christie. James Archibald
Hepworth, Joseph
Percy, Lord Eustace


Clarke, Frank
Holdsworth, Herbert
Peters, Dr. Sidney John


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey
Hornby, Frank
Pownall. Sir Asshetop


Colville. Lieut.-Colonel J.
Horsbrugh, Florence
Pybus, Sir Percy John


Conant, R. J. E.
Hewitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Radford, E. A.


Cooke. Douglas
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ralkes, Henry V. A. M.


Cooper, A. Duff
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Ramsay, Alexander (W. Bromwich)


Copeland. Ida
Hume, Sir George Hopwood
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Cranborne, Viscount
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Ramsay T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Crooke, J. Smedley
Hurst. Sir Gerald B.
Rathbone, Eleanor


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galnsb'ro)
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Rawson, Sir Cooper


Cross, R. H.
Jackson, J. C. (Heywood & Radcliffe)
Ray, Sir William


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Rea, Walter Russell


Culverwell, Cyril Tom
Janner, Barnett
Reed, Arthur C. (Exeter)


Dalkelth. Earl of
Jesson, Major Thomas E.
Reld, Capt. A. Cunningham-


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Jones, Lewis (Swansea, West)
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)


Davison. Sir William Henry
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Reld, William Allan (Derby)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Remer, John R.


Despencer-Robertson, Major J. A. F.
Knight, Holford
Rickards, George William


Doran, Edward
Lamb, Sir Joseph Quintan
Roberts. Aled (Wrexham)


Duckworth. George A. V.
Latham, Sir Herbert Paul
Rosbotham, Sir Thomas


Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Rothschild, James A. de


Duggan, Hubert John
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Runge, Norah Cecil


Dunglass, Lord
Levy, Thomas
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Eden, Robert Anthony
Liddall, Walter S.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Elmley, Viscount
Lindsay, Kenneth Martin (Kilm'rnock)
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Rutherford, John (Edmonton)
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.
Turton, Robert Hugh


Rutherford, Sir John Hugo (Llverp'l)
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Salmon, Sir Isidore
Spender-Clay, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Salt, Edward W.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Samuel, Sir Arthur Michael (F'nham)
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)
Waterhouse, Captain Charles


Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)
Stevenson, James
Watt, Captain George Steven H.


Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)
White, Henry Graham


Savery, Samuel Servington
Stewart, William J. (Belfast, S.)
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Scone, Lord
Stones, James
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Shakespeare, Geoffrey H.
Storey, Samuel
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Shepperson, Sir Ernest W.
Stourton, Hon. John J.
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Shute, Colonel J. J.
Strauss, Edward A.
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir John
Strickland, Captain W. F.
Wise, Alfred R.


Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)
Stuart, Lord C. Crichton-
Womersley, Walter James


Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)
Sueter, Rear-Admiral Sir Murray F.
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dine, C.)
Sutcliffe, Harold
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Smithers, Waldron
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H. (Derby)



Somervell, Sir Donald
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.
Sir Frederick Thomson and Sir




Victor Warrender.


NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Griffiths, T. (Monmouth, Pontypool)
Mainwaring, William Henry


Attlee, Clement Richard
Grundy, Thomas W.
Maxton, James


Banfield, John William
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvll)
Milner, Major James


Batey, Joseph
Hicks, Ernest George
Paling, Wilfred


Buchanan, George
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Parkinson, John Allen


Cape, Thomas
Kirkwood, David
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Daggar, George
Lawson, John James
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Leonard, William
Williams, Dr. John H. (Llanelly)


Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)
Logan, David Gilbert
Wilmot, John


Dobble, William
Lunn, William



Edwards, Charles
Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
McEntee, Valentine L.
Mr. John and Mr. D. Graham.


Grenfell, David Rees (Glamorgan)
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)



Question put, and agreed to.

POWER OF DISINHERITANCE BILL (CHANGED TO "INHERITANCE (FAMILY PROVISION) BILL").

Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee A.

Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

Minutes of Proceedings to be printed.

Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be considered upon Friday 27th April, and to be printed. [Bill 85.]

CHARMEN'S PANEL.

Mr. William Nicholson reported from the Chairmen's Panel; That they had appointed Sir Samuel Roberts to act as Chairman of Standing Committee A (in respect of the County Courts (Amendment) Bill [Lords]).

Report to lie upon the Table.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to regulate the sale and advertisement of contraceptives." [Contraceptives Bill [Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to empower statutory water undertakers to give and to take supplies of water in
bulk." [Supply of Water in Bulk (No. 2) Bill [Lords.]

And also, a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the law relating to arbitrations, and to make provision for other matters connected therewith." [Arbitration Bill [Lords.]

Orders of the Day — ILLEGAL TRAWLING (SCOTLAND) BILL.

Order for Second Reading read.

3.36 p.m.

The SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Sir Godfrey Collins): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This Bill is an effort to remove a longstanding hardship which has hurt the livelihood and discouraged the efforts of thousands of inshore fishermen around the coasts of Scotland and damaged their property. For many years this problem has been acute and as far back as 1923 Lord Mackenzie's impartial committee recommended drastic provisions to stop illegal trawling. That committee reported that the certificates of the skippers who engaged in illegal trawling should be suspended or cancelled and that the certificate of registry of the trawler should also be suspended or cancelled. Since 1923 the problem has continued and last autumn, responsible authorities in all parts of Scotland pressed for immediate action in view of the continued hardship caused to the inshore fishermen around our coasts. Illegal trawling depletes the inshore fishing grounds and thereby reduces the catches of the inshore fishermen. The gear of some of these men has also been destroyed by illegal trawling and as compensation is difficult to obtain their enterprise has been discouraged. On both social and economic grounds I feel sure that all Members of the House desire the prosperity of the inshore fisherman.
The inshore fishing industry to-day has no real chance of development until confidence which is the basis of all enterprise has been restored. The Sea Fishing Industry Act passed last year ought to be of some benefit to these men. If they can get better prices for their catches of white fish, that will help to compensate for the poor results in the herring fishing industry during the last three years. But this very desirable development of inshore fisheries will be hindered if illegal trawling prevents the men from getting satisfactory catches. That is the situation which I ask the
House of Commons this afternoon to consider. No one desires to increase the penalty in this or any other calling in life, but I can do no other. The existing penalties have proved insufficient to stop illegalities by a small but very persistent section of the trawlers. In the last three years, there have been 44 convictions for illegal trawling, and 27 convictions for concealing identification marks and other similar offences. These figures represent only the numbers caught and convicted. The poaching trawler is often successful, especially at night, in avoiding detection and the actual amount of illegal trawling to-day-is considerable.
The Bill makes the owner liable to a fine if his vessel is used for illegal trawling, but only if the skipper is a person previously convicted of illegal trawling within a given period. The maximum fines on the owner for the first, second and third convictions are £150, £250 and £500, respectively. A list of persons convicted of illegal trawling after the passing of this Bill will be available for inspection at the mercantile marine offices around our coasts. Let me mention that in this revision of the law opportunity has been taken to omit the existing forfeiture of the net and gear in the case of the first conviction of the skipper so long as he is not also the owner. It is proposed also to exclude the warps from the forfeiture in the case of a second or, subsequent conviction. Warps may be useful or necessary for anchoring or the navigation of the vessel.
At the present moment the maximum penalty on the skipper is the same for a second or subsequent offence as for a first offence, namely, a fine of £100 or imprisonment for 60 days' failing payment. The Bill does not increase the maximum fine of £100 in the case of a first conviction, but it gives the court a discretion to impose imprisonment for not exceeding three months without the option of a, fine. For a second conviction the maximum fine will be £200 while the court has discretion to impose imprisonment for not exceeding six months without the option of a fine. In the case of a third or subsequent conviction the court is empowered to impose both fine and imprisonment not exceeding £200 and six months, respectively.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is that for the skipper?

Sir G. COLLINS: Yes. These penalties are designed to provide an additional deterrent against the first offences and also against repeated offences such as have become notorious. I believe that the great majority of skippers and owners respect the law and will rejoice if the offences of the small minority cease altogether. Clauses 2 and 3 strengthen the existing penalties for offences which are frequently associated with illegal trawling. Let me relate a recent case to show the necessity for these provisions. A trawler was detected illegally trawling at night off the coast of Lewis. The trawler steamed away and when challenged refused to stop. The cruiser gave chase through the night and the following day. At dawn it was seen that the skipper and crew had masked their faces with mufflers and that the trawler's name, letters and numbers were concealed. Efforts made by the captain of the fishery cruiser to get alongside the trawler were rendered extremely dangerous as both sets of trawl boards had been swung outside the ship. When attempts were made to steer the cruiser alongside, the trawler was navigated in an erratic, dangerous manner, and the cruiser itself had difficulty in averting a collision. The chase continued, but the trawler's clever manoeuvres fortunately failed. The cruiser's officers carefully noted the main features of the trawler for purposes of identification and also took several snapshots. Later in the day, through the action of the elements, part of the letters and numbers became visible. Officers of the cruiser then went to a certain port and identified the trawler. Subsequently, the skipper was convicted of illegal trawling and three associated offences and was fined £186. He had previously been convicted twice for illegal trawling and twice for breach of the Collision Regulations. I give that simple statement to show some of the present difficulties which our fishery cruisers have to experience in their arduous and difficult duties in stopping this unfortunate practice.
Clause 4 requires the trawl boards and net to be inboard and the warps to be detached from the boards while the vessel is in waters where trawling is prohibited. The object of that provision is to make it more difficult for the vessel
to commit an offence quickly by using her trawl in the prohibited waters. We are thus tackling the problem of illegal trawling both by tightening the law against the practices and by fresh policing methods. The House is aware of the success of our recent experiments in the policing of certain parts of the west coast of Scotland. In addition, the Government have decided to strengthen the existing fleet by replacing old boats by three modern vessels. That is our contribution to the problem which has been acute for many years.
May I say to those who think we are going too far that the seas are wide and if skippers will avoid trawling in the prohibited areas they run no risk whatever through the operation of this Bill. No one, least of all myself, would wish to hurt the trawling fleet. Their courage in war and the hard life which they lead in our northern seas have always found and will always continue to find a sympathetic response in this House. I consider, however, that the proposals of the Bill are necessary for the reason which I have explained, and, although an Amendment is to be moved to reject the Bill, I trust that the House for the reasons I have given will give a unanimous consent to the Second Reading.

3.50 p.m.

Mr. NEIL MACLEAN: I am certain that in a large number of fishing ports in Scotland both the speech of the right hon. Gentleman and the Bill itself will be welcomed by those living there who depend upon fishing for their livelihood. For some time past, and more particularly during recent years, illegal trawling has become more and more of a menace to the livelihood of those people, and it is an undoubted fact that some of the vessels in use by the Fishery Board of Scotland have been unable to cope with those who were engaged in illegal trawling, and therefore I welcome the fact that three new vessels are to be built to replace some of the old ones presently in use. I put a question to the right hon. Gentleman regarding the age of several of the ships which were sailing as fishery cruisers, and I was informed that one had been in use by the Fishery Board for 33 years. Subsequent investigation revealed that the vessel was close upon 50 years of age at that time; it is now
over 50 years. I refer to the "Vigilant." In view of the repeated demands for the introduction of modern methods, surely the Fishery Board should have been the first to set an example by replacing the "Vigilant" by a more modern type of vessel. Another of the Fishery Board vessels, according to information I received from the right hon. Gentleman, broke down so often that she was practically useless during the whole of one year, and, so far as I can gather, no other vessel took her place.
With regard to the Bill itself, it is a very good plan to place more restrictive penalties upon those who repeatedly offend against the law. If penalties are very small captains of vessels run very little risk by illegal trawling. They can run within the three miles limit, make a very good catch of fish, realise a decent profit upon it and still afford to pay the very small fine such as has been imposed upon them hitherto if caught. Now progressive fines are proposed, and in addition the skipper is to be liable to imprisonment as well if he is found guilty of more than one offence. I think that will be a deterrent to skippers who indulge in what has become rather the practice than the opposite in the Scottish seas. There is one point in the Bill to which I feel I must take exception. The Secretary of State told us that where the skipper of a vessel was found guilty of illegal trawling the fines to be imposed on the owner of the vessel were also to be of a progressive character. He would be fined a certain sum for the first offence, an increased amount for the second offence, and on the third occasion fined, I think, £500. When the skipper is found guilty of his second offence he is to be liable to six months' imprisonment or a fine, but for his third offence he will be liable to a fine and a period of imprisonment.
There is to be no period of imprisonment for the owner, however, although it will have been within the knowledge of the owner that a skipper employed by him had been previously convicted of illegal trawling. The owner has employed the skipper in the full knowledge that he is a man who has indulged in illegal trawling, and unless he can prove that he has given definite instructions to the skipper that such practice is not to be continued he ought to be penalised, where
his offence is a cumulative one, at least by the threat that he may be subjected to imprisonment for the third offence, if the sheriff considers the case sufficiently serious. The Bill also lays it down that the Board of Trade must keep a register of the names of all skippers convicted of illegal trawling, so that when an owner has a vacancy for a skipper and goes through the list of applicants he can, on applying to the Board of Trade or whoever keeps this register, find out whether any of the skippers who have made application have been guilty of illegal trawling. Therefore, an owner who employs a skipper who has made a practice of illegal trawling does so with his eyes open, and if he cares to employ a skipper who has been convicted not only once or twice but thrice or oftener, he can be set down as an owner who is quite indifferent as to how his skipper is going to operate the ship. I hope in Committee to put down an Amendment providing that where a trawler skipper is found guilty of illegal trawling for the third time the owner shall be liable to a period of imprisonment as well as the skipper.

Sir MURDOCH McKENZIE WOOD: What if the owner is a company?

Mr. MACLEAN: In that case it may very well be that the secretary of the company is the individual who will be held to be responsible, or the chairman of the company, because it is through him that all the operations of the company will be done. Consequently, some definitely responsible person is always to be found in a company who must suffer if the company is guilty of contravening the law.

Mr. MILNE: Suppose the owner is a little girl who has succeeded to her father's estate?

Mr. MACLEAN: There are always trustees for little girls in such cases, and if the trustees are conducting the property so carelessly as to involve a breach of the law, then the trustees must suffer as the real owners. You cannot have excuses in that way; otherwise you will have children of the real owners becoming the registered owners, and the owners appearing as trustees. In that case, according to my hon. Friend, you would not be able to punish the real owner, because the owner happened to be a little child.

Mr. MILNE: There might be no trustees.

Mr. MACLEAN: Well, the little girls could not be managing the property, and therefore there would be a guardian. If my hon. Friend becomes a guardian of any of these little girls and they engage in illegal trawling, I trust that he will be able to face the punishment. There can be no excuse. There is always an attempt to ride off when you come to the question of illegal trawling, because of invested capital. Smash-and-grab raiders have invested a little capital in the purchase of a motor car and the tools they use, but that does not free them from the effects of their crime. If a man invests capital in a trawler and commits an offence against the law of the land, the fact that he has invested capital in that vessel is no justification for his escaping the same punishment as is inflicted on the captain he employs to be the direct breaker of the law.
I have in my hand a circular signed by Sir Andrew Lewis, Chairman of the British Trawlers' Federation, and this gentleman, speaking, I suspect, on behalf of the British Trawlers' Association, wants the three-mile limit abolished round certain waters in Scotland so that the trawlers can go in and trawl the waters inside that limit, because they say that those waters are not at the present time sufficiently fished by the ordinary fishermen. Why should the three-mile limit be abolished in any part of the world to suit the convenience or the profit of any body of trawl-owners? Why should fishing in Scotland within the three-mile limit, upon which so many thousands of Scottish fishermen depend for their livelihood, be smashed entirely because Sir Andrew Lewis comes along with a memorandum which is sent to Members of Parliament inviting them to assist in breaking up the three-mile limit? I hope that whoever is going to move that the Bill be read a Second time this day six months is not going to put forward any of the arguments advanced by Sir Andrew Lewis. If those reasons for delaying the Bill six months went out to the country, I am afraid that there would be an outcry in all the fishing villages, and it would probably arouse such a conflict of opinion between the trawler fishermen and the ordinary fishermen as to be almost a civil war in some
parts where these two sets of fishermen usually meet. I hope that that is not going to be done this afternoon.
I intended to put this point to the Secretary of State for Scotland. He met my point in a way by intimating that he was going to have three new cruisers put down, but that number, I submit, is not sufficient. I have been, as he knows, and as the Under-Secretary knows, bombarding them with questions about the capacity of the vessels, the time they have been withdrawn from patrolling and laid up in port, the breakdowns which had occurred to various vessels, the speeds and age of them, and all the rest of it, and I got from them, I must say, a great deal of information which was given very willingly and also very fully. The provisions of the Bill and the penalties it is going to impose are all very good, providing that, as in the cooking of the hare, you must first catch your hare, you are able to catch your trawler in order to impose your penalties upon him, but you are not going to catch your trawler unless you have faster cruisers under the supervision of the Fishery Board of Scotland than the trawlers that it has got now.
The Secretary for Scotland was good enough to tell us of a certain incident, which amounted almost to buccaneering, on the part of a trawler in attempting to resist arrest, but he did not tell the other story of the trawler which was able to elude His Majesty's ship "Doon," and they could only find her by going to Fleet-wood, where she was registered, and arresting her in that port. [An HOST. MEMBER: "It was the same trawler."] The Secretary for Scotland says it was not the same. I did not see the name of the vessel which did the buccaneering trick on His Majesty's cruiser, but, as far as the trawler at Fleetwood was concerned, the skipper was taken into court. I tried to find out from the Secretary for Scotland, but was brushed aside in the effort, the speed of the "Doon" and of the trawler she was chasing, and I have the answer sent by the Ministry informing me that it was not in the public interest that the speed of the "Doon" should be made known. I think that the Under-Secretary will remember that reply. It may not have been in the public interest, but it was certainly in the interest of the fishermen to know if the speed was a
little faster than that of the trawler which managed to elude her. Consequently, I hope that when these vessels are built, speed is to be one of the main considerations as well as sturdiness to stand up to any speed they have to make in chasing any trawlers which they see, or suspect of being, engaged in illegal trawling.
Therefore, for that purpose the Labour party are prepared to give a Second Reading to this Bill, recognising that it will, in the main, convey some hope to the fishermen who have been incensed during past years at the depredations which have been made in the areas in which they have been accustomed to fish by vessels engaged in illegal trawling, which is continuing to such an extent that in many of these places I am certain—and Members who come from fishing districts in Scotland will bear me out—that the fishermen have come to believe that the Government do not care anything about their conditions, and are beginning to lose hope of anything being done for them through Government assistance. We will support the Second Reading and assist the Government, as far as we can, in carrying it through this stage, even though those who seek to delay the Bill try to force their Amendment to a Division. But we reserve the right, in Committee, to put down Amendments along the lines I have indicated, as well as in regard to one point I had almost omitted where trawlers have been guilty of illegal trawling and have sailed inside the three-mile limit and destroyed nets. We wish something included in the Bill to give compensation. It will not be sufficient merely to inflict a fine in the case of the trawler, and to leave the fishermen with nothing whatever to replace their nets which have been destroyed. Where a trawler sails in and destroys the nets of fishermen within the three-mile limit, in addition to the fine, the owner of the trawler should be liable to compensate the fishermen for their nets or other fishing apparatus destroyed. We will try to amend the Bill in Committee, but I hope that the House will give it a Second Reading without a Division.

4.12 p.m.

Sir MURDOCH MACDONALD: I rise to support this Bill, the Second Reading of which was moved so lucidly and so cogently by the Secretary of State for Scotland. I support it because I have
some little experience or knowledge of what has happened under the existing system, and I am fully aware of its deplorable results, especially in that part of the seaboard of the western side of Scotland which, perhaps, more than any other part, has been detrimentally affected by illegal trawling. It is for this reason that, for a moment or two, I ask the House to allow me to say a few words in support of the Bill. When the original decision to prohibit trawling in territorial waters was brought before the House in the past, the penalties for contravention were expected to be sufficient to deter potential law breakers. Unfortunately, this was not only not the case, but the persistence of illegal trawling was so great, and, in particular, prevention was so difficult, that inshore fishing, at one time the main livelihood of a very great number of people, was rendered unremunerative, and gradually they gave up its prosecution, until to-day only a very small percentage of the very large fleet of fishing boats engaged in inshore fishing goes to sea. That has reduced, unfortunately, right to the poverty line, a great number of our fellow countrymen, and has undoubtedly been a contributory cause of the great reduction of population which has occurred in certain areas. Among the more important matters facing the country is a redistribution of population, and, in so far as this Bill, if it be passed, will be effective, it will undoubtedly be an aid towards the reduction of unemployment. It will restore to people, who have been illegally deprived of their means of livelihood by trawling, a means of subsistence.
Many years ago, I believe it was in this House, Mr. John Bright said that even the rumour of war had a very serious effect on national life. The report that the Secretary of State for Scotland was considering this matter and the subsequent intimation in the King's Speech that a Bill was to be brought in to amend the law have already had a wonderful effect. I was told by a distinguished naturalist, who lives on the western seaboard of my constituency, that day and night within sight of his house he could see the trawlers fishing close inshore, and that, since the circulation of the rumour that this Bill was to come before the House, he has not seen one trawler near his house within the three-mile limit.
A well-known proprietor on the western seaboard informed the county council of Inverness-shire the other day that, for the first time since the War, he was able to get white fish, caught locally, and sold in his own neighbourhood.
On the western seaboard, the population of Scotland are not so divided up in their occupation as is the case in the North-East and East coasts. They have to eke out a livelihood as a rule by crofting and fishing. Each crofter is usually a shareholder in a communal sheep stock, and individually has a right to whatever share may come from the annual sale of the produce of the stock. They themselves spend very little time in looking after the sheep stock, as they depute one of their number to look after the sheep, and they devote the remainder of their time to their small croftings and to the subsidiary occupation of fishing. When prices of sheep were high a number of years ago, those people were just able to make both ends meet, but now, when sheep stock prices are extremely low, and when the auxiliary occupation of fishing has been rendered unremunerative by illegal trawling, they are in a very parlous condition.
It was, therefore, right and fit that the Secretary of State for Scotland, after his visit to the western seaboard in particular, should bring in this Bill to "restore" the fishing of which those people have been illegally deprived. Many years of neglect of fishing have brought about alterations in the conditions, and even a total abolition of illegal trawling, if it were certain from this moment could not wholly replace the former condition. Fishing boats which were in existence for inshore fishing 15 or 20 years ago have either disappeared or have rotted away beyond repair. Nets have been lost or destroyed—if they have not been destroyed by trawlers—and all such gear will in most cases have to be replaced. It is to be hoped that the Secretary of State for Scotland will take this point fully into view, seeing that the gear was destroyed as a result of the want of policing and by the inadequacy of the penalty for illegal trawling. It is this lack of power with which this Bill is seeking to deal.
I am confident that in due time there will be a full revival of inshore fishing, and that the small seaboard villages will once again become populous and prosperous. If for any reason this House should reject the Bill, the former condition of affairs, and not those subsequent to the rumour of the introduction of this Bill, would be resumed, and illegal trawling would again become common. The law would once again be flouted as much as it has been in the past. As everyone knows, the Government's preventive measures have been wholly inadequate, and the intimation by the Secretary of State for Scotland in his Estimates for the coming year of an increased service of cruisers, has undoubtedly been a great step forward. Some trawl owners do not like the Bill. The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) referred to a circular sent out by Sir Andrew Lewis. There is one extraordinary paragraph in that circular, and it is this:
On the west coast of Scotland, there are innumerable islands, including St. Kilda and the Flannens, both splendid fishing grounds, which are entirely unfished by the natives, but, by virtue of the three-mile limit, are closed to trawlers. Surely, if west coast men are unable or unwilling to fish those waters, it is only sound common sense that these grounds be thrown open to trawl fishermen who are not only willing to fish them but anxious to do so.
That clause points out that there are innumerable islands, but it does not add that the reason for there being no fishing to-day round those innumerable islands is the illegal work which trawlers have been doing in the past. What that clause says in effect is, "We have pursued illegal practices in the past, and we have prevented local fishermen from fishing. We have ruined their fishing as a remunerative undertaking. We have destroyed their nets, and now for years they have not fished there. Therefore, let us do so." That is a most extraordinary argument.
In common fairness I would like to add that if there were areas like St. Kilda from which the Secretary of State for Scotland had removed the people, and where to-day there were no people living, it might be possible upon application to the Secretary of State to arrange for trawlers to fish within that limit or indeed within any other similar limit. Trawlers are prevented from fishing inside the Moray Firth and other parts of the country which are outside the
three-mile limit. They might well, rather than by illegalities break down the law altogether, go to the Secretary of State and say, "Nobody fishes in these particular areas," and it might be arranged, either by Order of the Secretary of State under his own fiat, if that were possible, or through Parliament by a Bill, to allow them to fish in waters where nobody fishes. That would be perfectly reasonable. There are other islands along the west coast of Scotland where in practically every case people from the adjacent islands go to fish, but in respect of which a request might be made, similar to that in the clause which I have just read from the circular, that, because fishing has been abandoned owing to the action of the trawlers themselves, the trawlers should now be allowed to continue. That is an argument to which I am sure the House would never agree.
It was not only in making fishing un-remunerative by the actual non-securing of fish that those illegal practices were destructive, but even more vitally because the trawlers in innumerable cases destroyed the nets of the fishermen, thus making it impossible for the men to resume their occupation even if they had wished to do so. The fishermen, living in the circumstances they do, are quite unable financially to bring actions against the great companies and the comparatively wealthy people who own trawlers. Fortunately—I would like to draw the attention of the hon. Member for Govan to this point—to their great credit, Lord Craigie Aitchison, then Lord Advocate, ably assisted by the present Lord Advocate, refused to subscribe to the doctrine that such claims as fishermen might make for lost nets were only a matter for civil action between the parties. They made clear what was not generally known, and not known, I believe, to the Scottish Office—it seemed evident also that the hon. Member for Govan thought that this was not the case—that a sheriff trying a case of illegal trawling could also settle a claim for damage by loss of nets. There was a very blatant case which is evidence of that. It was a case in which a trawler had been convicted, I think, for the ninth time, of illegal trawling. On the last occasion it happened to be proved that the trawler had caused a loss of nets as well. The case was settled by a payment arranged between the parties, but only after the
Crown had intimated to the sheriff at Portree that a prosecution would follow unless the case was heard to decide the value of the damage, and had asked him to assess it. Only after that intimation was an agreement actually come to between the parties. That makes it quite clear that to-day claimants who allege that a trawler has destroyed their nets can, when the trawler has been prosecuted, also ask the court to settle what damage is due for the nets which have been destroyed.
The Bill will not put a stop to a man who has been convicted for the ninth time. Obviously, he has regarded the penalties as no deterrent, and he finds that the profits upon illegal trawling justify the payment of a fine upon an occasional conviction. Strengthening of the punishment and making the owner responsible, as contained in the Clauses of the Bill, are undoubtedly steps in the right direction. An owner hitherto has not been responsible, presumably because the captain convicted in any particular case was fishing in an area in which the owner had not authorised him to go. An owner could hire a captain who had been convicted again and again of illegal trawling and with him could reap the proceeds of the delinquency, but that is to be put right in the Bill. Such a step will be the most serious of all deterrents. All the Clauses of the Bill, however, and all the Sections of former Acts will not stop illegal trawling unless there is adequate supervision and policing in order to see that the law is kept.
The hon. Member for Govan referred to a recent case where a trawler disobeyed the repeated orders of a fishing cruiser to return so that he could be prosecuted. That shows how trawlers regard the law. Prosecution of that particular trawler broke down because of a technical error. But that did not prevent His Majesty's judges in the case before them from castigating very severely the conduct of the trawler in running away and not obeying the order of His Majesty's cruiser. It does appear that the trawler was able to travel at a faster speed than the fishery cruiser. A fellow countryman of mine, a fisherman and a crofter, comparing the speed of a fishery cruiser within those northern waters with that of an ordinary trawler,
described its progress off a near-by headland as comparable with that of a crab at a lobster's funeral. It is therefore very pleasant that, contemporaneously with this Bill, additional steps are being taken to provide better and faster boats and more efficient policing. I am fully aware of the fact that the fishery cruisers hitherto engaged in protecting the coast against illegal trawling have done their utmost. Their failure has nothing to do with the captains and the crews, but is due to the means at their disposal, which have been inadequate. I congratulate the Secretary of State for Scotland and the National Government who are supporting him in bringing this Bill forward, and I hope that the Bill will have a speedy passage into law.

4.33 p.m.

Major Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: The main principle of the Bill, that the best way of preventing illegal trawling is to deter the people who may be tempted to commit the offence by the prospect of heavy penalties, is one which will be always associated with the name of Sir Duncan Millar, who sat so long in this House and, with persistence and energy, Session after Session, with the support of a great many hon. Members on both sides of the House, brought forward a Measure of this character. I gladly associate myself with my hon. Friends in congratulating the Secretary of State for Scotland on introducing the Bill, and I also express my gratitude to him for the very lucid explanation which he gave of its terms.
I should also like to associate myself with what the Secretary of State said about the importance of the trawling industry. There is no one who supports this Measure who does not realise the importance of the immense quantities of cheap fish which is the food of large masses of people in our great towns and cities. The trawlers are the main source of supply of that cheap fish but, as the right hon. Gentleman said, the wide spaces of the seas and oceans are available for them and are, indeed, more than enough for them. On the recommendation of the Scott Committee this House committed itself to a £250,000 programme for the exploration of the sea and it was found later that there was far more sea available than the trawling industry re-
quired, therefore last year the Government introduced a Bill one of the main provisions of which was to prevent the trawlers from going into those areas on the exploration of which this House had already spent considerable sums of money.
If there is one part of the sea which the trawlers might be asked to give up in the first place, it is that narrow band of three miles around our coasts on which the great mass of the fishermen of Scotland depend for their livelihood. Out of 23,622 fishermen in Scotland only the odd 3,000 and a few hundreds belong to the trawling industry. The other 20,000 are fishermen of other kinds. They are the mainstay of the fishing industry. They are the main recruiting grounds not only of our Navy, which is very important, but of our mercantile marine. Many an experienced sailor has told me that the finest seamen who go into the mercantile marine are those who have been brought up as boys about the little piers and inlets around the coast of Scotland. If this House is, as I know it is, deeply concerned to maintain the balance between rural and urban life there is nothing more important than to give a fair chance of survival to those important fishing communities which are dotted around our coasts.
The effect of trawling within the three-mile limit is, first of all, to damage those vitally important nurseries of fish which are found in the shallow waters around the coast, important for the inshore fishermen and important for the whole fishing industry, including the trawling industry, because it is from these shallow waters in which the fish grow to a good size that they go out into the wider seas and are caught as fine fish by the trawlers. If the trawlers come inshore to catch them as they do now in vast quantities in an immature state they are depriving the industry of what in future years would be a fruitful source of fish. Then there is the question to which the Secretary of State referred, the fouling and destruction of the nets of inshore fishermen. That is another great source of damage which the inshore fishermen suffers from the depredations of the trawlers. I agree with the hon. Member for Inverness (Sir M. Macdonald) that, in fact, compensation can be claimed by those fishermen with regard to their nets. The difficulty is not, as the hon.
Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) indicated, the present position of the law. I think the present position of the Jaw is clear and that the fishermen are entitled to compensation. The difficulty is the getting of evidence against the particular trawler that has done the damage. That is the great problem and it is one which it is very difficult to overcome by means of a Clause or an Amendment of the Bill.
That the depredations of the trawlers have had an immense effect on the fishing industry of Scotland is clear from recent experience, because it is a fact that after the War fish were found in abundance, even as abundantly as they used to be found before trawling started. The hon. Member for Inverness claimed that his constituents in the west had suffered more than fishermen in any other part of Scotland, but I do not think that they have suffered more than those on the north coast, for whom I speak, and the north-east coast. I have been told by old fishermen of Wick that, while now it is a good fishing if there is only a line of cod round the quays of Wick, in the old days, in the lifetime of fishermen now living, the fish were ranged in piles the whole way round the quays of the harbour. We have travelled a long way from those times. The crofter fisherman is disappearing in many parts of the country. Around the north-east and the north coast there are crofter settlements and they used to rely upon the fishing to pay the rent of their holdings, but gradually that source of income has diminished, they have thrown up their holdings, or their holdings have been amalgamated one with another, and the sad fact is that in many parts of the country the crofter fisherman is disappearing.
We in the Highland counties are deeply concerned, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Boss and Cromarty (Sir I. Macpherson) will agree, about the problem of depopulation There are many agencies of depopulation—sheep farming, deer stalking, the use of machinery on the farms, and another very important one is the growth of trawling and the depredation of trawlers within the three-mile limit. That is not the least important of the factors of depopulation which I have mentioned. To preserve these communities the least that can be done
is to uphold the three-mile limit. It was the trawling industry itself which demanded restrictions upon the area of fishing last year and acclaimed the Government's Bill. Therefore, for the sake of the communities concerned, these little fishing communities around our coasts, providing 20,000 out of the 23,000 Scottish fishermen, for the sake of the stock of fish in the seas around our coasts, there is no more important area of the sea that we should protect than that little band of three miles around our coasts.
Illegal trawling is a growing evil, but I was very glad to hear from the statements, which are later than those in my possession, which were given by the hon. Member for Inverness, that already as a result of this Bill there is a falling off in these depredations. My figures relate to the last few years before this Bill was introduced and they show that in 1927 there were 17 detections; in 1930, 27 detections, and in 1932 35 detections of illegal trawling. But those are only a small proportion of the complaints. For example, in 1930 there were 27 detections out of 85 complaints. Further than that, the complaints are only a tiny proportion of the number of cases of illegal trawling, because any hon. Member who knows the North of Scotland, who knows these fishing communities and has been among the fishermen and asked them about the amount of illegal trawling, will have been told of scores of case; of the night after night appearance of trawlers. These fishermen say: "What is the good of going perhaps five miles to a telegraph office and sending a wire to Edinburgh and getting a fishery cruiser sent, when long before that procedure has been gone through the trawler is miles away?" Therefore, the growth in the number of detections is only an indication of the enormous growth there has been in recent years in the amount of illegal trawling.

Mr. BURNETT: Is the right hon. Gentleman including in those figures illegal seining as well as illegal trawling, because his figures differ from those that I have received from the Scottish Fishery Board?

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Yes, they include illegal seining, but there is no need to draw a distinction. We are dealing with the three-mile limit. I see what is in the hon. Member's mind and I am obliged to him for his interruption, because it enables me to answer the point that he
has in mind. The present provision is adequate to deal with the seine net people because they are very small people with small capital to whom a fine of £50 is a tremendous thing, but it is very different when you are dealing with large trawling companies. For them a fine of £50 or £100 is very small. Moreover, the capacity of their trawlers is far greater than the capacity of the seine net boat. I am willing to answer the hon. Member's point but it does not affect my point. It is not the number of convictions, whether they are seining or trawling, but the growth in the number, a fact which is within the knowledge of every hon. Member who knows these parts of the Highland counties. It is confirmed by the official figures. The representatives of the trawling industry which appeared before Lord Mackenzie's Committee on illegal trawling expressed strong disapproval of this practice, and I should have thought that they ought to be supporting this Bill which is intended to put an end to practices of which the trawling industry through their representatives expressed their disapproval. But Lord Mackenzie's Committee found there was a minority—and this is in their findings—who were less scrupulous than the majority, and they said there was no other explanation of the employment of skippers after repeated convictions than that this minority were conniving at their depredations. These are their very words, and it was a very weighty Committee presided over by a well-known judge of the Court of Session. The hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Burnett) shakes his head, but I am speaking, not from my own knowledge but from what Lord Mackenzie with two eminent colleagues reported as his opinion after hearing a whole mass of evidence, including evidence from the trawling companies. There is one practice in the trawling industry which provides an incentive, the practice in many oases of remunerating the skippers with a percentage of the price of the catch, which naturally tempts a man to obtain a catch by any means in his power.
I would like to put to the House the conclusion of Lord Mackenzie's Committee on this point, because it is a very important Committee and produced a report on this question which I am sure every hon. Member who is interested in
the subject has considered. After hearing a great deal of evidence, it reported:
It is much to be regretted that the gravity of the offence"—
That is illegal trawling—
and its disastrous effect on a struggling and deserving section of the community are not more fully realised by the trawling industry. To bring home to all trawler owners and skippers a due sense of their responsibility in this matter, effective legislative action is necessary. It is abundantly clear that the existing penalties have proved inadequate for the purpose.
It is because this Bill will, I believe, bring home this responsibility to skippers and owners that I support it. Penalties are larger in other countries. In Iceland, for example, there was a case the other day where a British trawler owner was fined £1,600, and another case where there was a fine of £1,000. In Iceland, Norway and Russia penalties are far higher than here.
I understand that objection is taken by those who are particularly interested in the trawling industry to the liability being placed on the owner because of an offence committed by the skipper, but that principle is already in the existing Acts of Parliament dealing with illegal trawling. The seizure of fish, forfeiture of gear, and the retention of the ships are all laid down in the existing Acts. Therefore, the principle that an owner must be held responsible is recognised in our law. The necessity is proved by such instances as the hon. Member for Inverness quoted of a man who had been convicted nine times. I have not heard of such a bad case though I have heard of four, six, seven and eight convictions. That shows they must have support, or at any rate that the owners do not care that these men have defied the law when they have been masters of their ships. We know of cases in which men, when detected, have scoffed at the inshore fishermen, and said: "We can pay the fine in a single night's fishing." The sheriff of Stornoway recently said, after trying four cases, that it was proved that in the present state of the law it was worth while for the master to run the risk. Because this Bill will, I believe, make it not worth while, I think the House will be well advised to pass it.
There is one difference between this Bill and the recommendations of Lord Mackenzie's Committee, a difference to which the Secretary of State referred in his speech though he did not explain it.
There is no provision in this Bill for the cancellation of the master's certificate. The recommendations of the committee were very specific on that point. They said the worst types of offence committed by trawlers consisted in the falsification of letters and numbers and being without the prescribed lights when engaged in trawling in prohibited areas. That is a very frequent offence, and dangerous to every other form of navigation. The committee consider that in first cases, in addition to the existing penalties, there should be a suspension or cancellation of the certificate of the master and of the certificate of registry of the offending vessel. They recommend that for second and subsequent offences, the master and owners should be liable in addition to the existing penalties to further penalties prescribed in the case of these offences to which I have referred, and they conclude by saying:
In the opinion of the Committee an action such as is suggested would prove more efficacious than an increase in the money penalty, the burden of which may be escaped by pooling or insurance.
I hope the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary will explain to the House why these recommendations of Lord Mackenzie's Committee have not been accepted. I agree with all that has been said by the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) and previous speakers about the importance of fast vessels. The hon. Member for Govan has made a special study of the question, but I think that even if you have fast vessels all round the coast and you do not have penalties which will exercise a real deterrent on the masters of the ships, you will have people who will nip in and run the risk on a dark night and get the fish. This seems to me to be even more important than fast ships. It is necessary to compel respect for the law which has been set at defiance by a number—a minority—of masters and owners and also in order to secure the livelihood of the inshore fishermen.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. MILNE: Illegal trawling spells disaster to the inshore fishermen, and they are asking for our protection. I hope all Scottish Members will rally to their support and Vote for the Second Reading of this Bill. But there is one feature of it which calls for criticism. It is not con-
cerned with the proposed increase in the penalties. The Secretary of State has told us that the existing ones have proved wholly insufficient, and for my pant, if there is any fault to be found with the penalties in the Bill, I think it is that they are not severe enough. I would have welcomed penal servitude. [An HON. MEMBER: "Why not burn them?"]
There is one feature of the Bill which is entirely indefensible. It invokes the expedient of vicarious responsibility. By all means let us punish the offender with the utmost rigour of the law, but do not let us punish the innocent for offences committed by somebody else. In cases of civil liability vicarious liability is a well-established and wholesome provision of the law of Scotland—Respondeat superior. The owner of a motor car is rightly responsible for the illegal acts of his servant, and if a driver runs somebody down the injured party can bring an action against the owner. But this Bill is not dealing with civil liability; it is a penal measure; it deals with crime, and vicarious liability is clean contrary to the common law of Scotland, the common law of crime. By the common law of Scotland, no crime can be committed unless there is a felonious intention, and that is not only common law but common sense. This Bill is permeated with this doctrine of vicarious liability. I should be sorry to see a little lassie accosted on the way home from school, and told to appear in a criminal court.
I do not want to say anything more about that, because I do not want to quarrel with my friend the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean), whom I hope to meet, still friendly, in the "Aye" Lobby, but will he accompany me to Clause 4 of the Bill? It provides that when a trawler is within a prohibited area the hoards of the trawl and net must be inboard, and, if the trawl and net are left outboard, an offence has been committed. The Bill creates a new statutory offence. No harm in that; it seems to be a perfectly useful and reasonable provision. But what follows is not reasonable. The second Sub-section goes on to provide that if an offence has been committed the skipper shall be deemed to be guilty. It says:
In the event of a contravention of the foregoing provisions of this Section, the skipper shall be guilty of an offence and
liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding twenty pounds.
I want to make this very plain. These words can only mean, and were intended to mean, that in all circumstances, however innocent the skipper may be, he is guilty of an offence. You may say: "Could not the skipper explain all this to the sheriff and convince him that he is not guilty?" That is just what he cannot do; that is what the language of the Bill, chosen with deliberation, provides that he shall not be able to do. He cannot offer any defence whatever. I quite agree that in nine cases out of ten, or 19 out of 20, the skipper is guilty, but not always. He may have gone ashore in the execution of his duty. He may be below decks, lying in a comatose condition with double pneumonia, wholly unconscious of his surroundings, and when he recovers consciousness he learns for the first time that an offence has been committed and that by Act of Parliament he is a criminal. I put it to the Secretary of State, or the Parliamentary Under-Secretary, that this is what the Bill sets out to do.
That is the intention of the Bill. This second Sub-section is in itself an offence against justice and fair play. Why is it necessary to invoke this expedient? All that is required—the matter can be remedied in Committee—is a statutory enactment that the skipper in those circumstances shall be presumed to be guilty. Shift the onus, place the onus on the skipper. It will then be necessary for him if he seeks to exculpate himself, to satisfy the sheriff of his innocence. He will have an opportunity of propounding a defence, and in a case of guilt he will not be able to succeed. I shall be told that vicarious responsibility is no novelty in the law of Scotland. Had I been making this speech at the time when I first began to study law—that is not a very remote date—I should have asseverated with truth that vicarious responsibility had no place whatever in the criminal law of Scotland.

Mr. MACLEAN: Is it not the case that under the Coal Mines Act of 1911 it is possible to prosecute the owner or manager of a mine or both?

Mr. MILNE: I have no knowledge as to that. I spoke of the common law of Scotland. At the time when I first began
to study law I should have said that vicarious responsibility had no place in the criminal law of Scotland. I am sorry that I have to disclose my antiquity, but I began to study the law before 1911. Since then from time to time the Legislature has begun to insinuate into our criminal code the expedient of vicarious responsibility. The practice goes on; precedent is added to precedent. It is not merely this Government that is the offender; its predecessors have offended also. Whenever a Government is in difficulty it seeks this easy way of escape. Vicarious responsibility still lingers in the case of some of our schools. When a schoolmaster cannot detect an offender he punishes the class. But we expect something better from a National Government. Is it necessary that the Government should take that way of escape, the last refuge of the incompetent schoolmaster? Illegal trawling must be suppressed. Let us punish the offenders; let us smite them hip and thigh; but do not let us victimise a class. Give the skippers a fair chance.

5.5 p.m.

Sir IAN MACPHERSON: I am sure that the House has listened with very great pleasure to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for West Fife (Mr. Milne). I personally agree with his speech. I have always been of the opinion that the old doctrine of respondeat superior was a sound one. I am quite certain the House will agree that some more severe penalty should be put upon the proper person, namely, the owner of the trawler, rather than the skipper, who may not be entirely responsible. The Government ought to consider my hon. Friend's second point, namely, that the skipper should be allowed to put forward a defence if he has a defence. I would be prepared to support my hon. Friend in any action he may take in Committee to provide that where a trawler is captured, if the skipper has a defence, he should be allowed to put that defence forward. Those Members from Scotland who have been in the House for a long time have become accustomed to Debates on illegal trawling. I was glad to hear mention made of my late hon. and learned Friend, Sir Duncan Millar, with whom I was associated for many years. I think I backed every Bill which he brought forward. The real origin of this Bill
is Lord Mackenzie's Report. It is due to my constituency to say that that report originated there, and I personally had the honour of pressing in the House for that Commission to be appointed.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on producing this Bill. It is a matter of great credit to the National Government that it should have brought forward the Bill. We have had a great deal of talk about penalties for trawlers, and a great deal of lip-service for many years past. It is a great pleasure to those who have worked hard to secure this legislation to find not only that the Bill is before the House but that it is backed by the Government. That is a new stage in the matter and is a cause for congratulation. But there is one caveat which I would like to enter, and that is that, although we are fortunate indeed in having this Bill presented to us, it should not be the end of the matter so far as the fishing industry is concerned. The Secretary of State would do well to remember that this is only part of the problem. It is the negative side of the problem, but the fishing industry in Scotland has a positive side. While we are all prepared to welcome this Bill as a step in the right direction, we should be false to the situation unless we also reminded the Government that we are determined so far as we can to press for a real constructive effort on behalf of this great industry.
It is true that illegal trawling is a very great menace to the fishing industry. But there is also the menace of the seine net. Particularly in the Moray Firth it is just as dangerous to the industry as ordinary illegal trawling. I am delighted that during the last few months the Government have shown themselves alive to the problem. What we have been told about new vessels for policing purposes is very satisfactory. It is clear that it is no good having a Bill of this kind unless we have also first-class policing. By first-class I mean cruisers which are able to overcome any trawler off any part of the coast of Scotland. I am certain that the House would give every support to the Secretary of State if he pressed upon the Government the desirability of displacing the old fishery cruisers and providing a really good fleet of vessels able to undertake this work. It is a very difficult matter to police the entire coast
of a country. I often feel the greatest sympathy with the fishery cruisers. They are very few in number. They have done their best on all occasions, but they were up against a problem which it was almost impossible for them adequately to solve. There was a sort of system of telegraphy existing between trawlers and various ports around the coast. If a cruiser was seen at Oban someone was told at Stornoway. The result was that there was the greatest difficulty in making any capture at all. Recently, however, there have been many captures, which redound to the credit of the policing forces under the Fishery Board.
The case for the Bill has not been put more adequately than by two friends of mine, the clerk of the Ross-shire County Council, and the convener of the county. I think all Members of the House have a printed copy of that case before them. It has been used several times in the Debate so far, and I do not intend therefore to use it myself. I do not see what grievance the Trawling Association could have against a Bill of this kind. There is a law in the land and all of us have to respect that law. A man walking down Bond Street may think he has a grievance if he sees very fine jewellery displayed in a shop window, but he does not deviate from his path in order to steal that jewellery. The law has the same method of application in the case of trawlers. There are certain clearly defined areas in which it is illegal for a trawler to go. If a trawler goes inside those areas it is committing a crime; there is no other word for it. The trawling community as a whole are honest, respectable, law-abiding citizens, but the evidence shows that during many years illegalities and crime have been committed by trawlers. Those illegalities and crimes have destroyed the legal fishing ground of the inshore fishermen. We are here telling those owners of trawlers that if they have any scallywags in their midst we are determined that they shall be penalised for breaking the law of the land. If a man does an illegal act in London he is promptly punished. The same thing applies to the sea. The law is as distinct with regard to the three-mile limit as it is with regard to taking property which is not your own. It behoves the Trawling Association, instead of making complaints against this Bill, to set its own house in order, and to see
that within its ranks there are men who refuse to be partners to the breaking of the law.
That is the situation in a nutshell. If there are scallywags who will break the law I am prepared to go the length of Lord Mackenzie and his committee. The proper thing to do in a case of that kind is to cancel a skipper's certificate after due warning. That is commonly done by the Board of Trade for much less offences, sometimes for bad navigation. But this is a criminal offence. It is a form of modern piracy which should be recognised as such. Where a skipper knowingly breaks the law after he has been given fair warning, on the second occasion he should be declared unfit to hold a master's certificate. I think that this Bill will bring a great deal of encouragement to the fishermen on the coasts of Scotland. They have had an exceedingly hard time, and have long been awaiting a Measure of this kind. I am certain that the House will be doing a wise and right thing if it gives, not a half-hearted, but a unanimous vote for a Bill of this kind, which is only going to penalise those who deserve to be penalised, while, on the other hand, it will do justice to these people who have been struggling against adversity in very hard times.

5.16 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: I think there is a good deal of misapprehension as to the attitude of the trawler owners towards this Bill. British trawler owners strongly deprecate any deliberate breach of the Scottish fishery laws. I should have thought that that was obvious, and that hon. Members from Scotland understood it. The men who break those laws certainly have not the support of the owners. What amazes me, as an Englishman, is the savage, penal enforcement that is proposed in this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) advocated, apparently, the stringent methods of the Soviet Union. How is it that against Englishmen the Scotsman takes, as regards fishing, an attitude so different from that which he takes towards those on his own shores?
The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) referred to the Road Traffic Act. I think it is well known to hon. Members
that you can kill a man in Scotland and get away with it; you can maim his wife and children; but you must not take away his employment. Under this Measure, apparently, if you go anywhere near his fishing ground there will be very little chance of pleading successfully against the Scottish laws. I think that that is grossly unfair, and I hope very much that we shall hear from the Secretary of State for Scotland that there will be some amelioration of it. Take the law of trespass—I use the English term. If you go trespassing in Scotland you are fined a few shillings; and even if you go on to a farm and steal some—[HON. MEMBERS: "No!"]. I am using the English word. At any rate, you are not, in Scotland, fined £200 for what we in England call trespassing. If, however, you go on to the fishing grounds, even though you do not fish, but are perhaps driven there by stress of weather, you are liable to be fined £200. From the point of view of equity and justice, that is a monstrous imposition.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: When people are fined £100 now, the fines are paid in court; they are willingly paid without any trouble.

Lieut.-Colonel HENEAGE: I think that that, if I may say so, is an entire misapprehension of the case. The hon. Member for Govan mentioned the Coal Mines Act, and asked whether under that Measure the owners were mot penalised; but the owners have complete control, so far as that is possible, over their employés, because they are on the spot. The owner of a trawler certainly has not complete control over the skipper, and it is not right that he should have it. The English trawler owners, like English people generally, encourage their skippers to be independent and to go where they think the fish are best to be found.
I should like to urge upon the Secretary of State for Scotland certain Amendments which I hope he will be prepared to accept. In the first place, I think a safeguarding Clause should be inserted to meet the case of a vessel which inadvertently contravenes the law, as distinguished from the deliberate commission of an offence. I think it is obvious that yachts, which certain hon. Members from Scotland can afford to keep even in these days,
are liable to be driven within the three-mile limit without necessarily knowing where they are; but under this Measure, unless certain definite regulations are complied with, not only the skipper but also the owner will be liable to a fine. I suggest that hon. Members from Scotland should meet us on this point. As regards Sub-section (3) and other Subsections of Clause 1, I think it is obvious that, if a skipper is fined more than once, or say more than twice, he will lose his job, because the owner cannot afford the risk of bringing fines upon himself; whereas, apparently, if he changes his skipper, he will not, as I read the Bill, be liable under these provisions. Is it fair so to penalise the livelihood of the skippers of these vessels? I suggest that Sub-section (3) is unnecessarily harsh and vindictive. Sub-sections (4), (5) and (6) will disappear if Sub-section (3) is done away with.
Again, I would ask the attention of the Secretary of State to Sub-section (1) of Clause 4. I suggest that this should be amended to provide that the net only shall be inboard, on the ground that a vessel which is legally fishing may by stress of circumstances, such as bad weather, sickness, injury to the crew, or some accident to the vessel, be compelled to seek shelter at a time when there is no opportunity to stow the whole of its gear. I think it will be within the knowledge of hon. Members that that is one of the objections that we have to many of the foreign laws dealing with fishing—that vessels which have to come within the three-mile limit suddenly, through unforeseen circumstances, cannot stow their gear in accordance with the law, and gross unfairness results. I hope very much that it will be possible for the Secretary of State, or whoever is responsible, to make some declaration that during the Committee stage the objections which are felt very strongly by English Members will be met.

5.24 p.m.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I hope that the Secretary of State for Scotland will pay no attention to what has fallen from the lips of the hon. and gallant Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage). When the hon. and gallant Member compares what is happening around our shores with what happens to anyone who happens to be trespassing in Scotland, he says that we are not fair, because when anyone
trespasses in Scotland we only fine him a few shillings. The fact of the matter is that there is no such thing as a law of trespass in Scotland. Sir William Harcourt, in 1877, passed an Act which did away with trespass as far as Scotland is concerned. This is a more serious matter than simple trespassing. If you could fancy a body of men entering on a farm, tearing up everything that the farmer had sown on his fields, and destroying all his cattle, that would be a comparison with what the trawler does on the fishing grounds around, particularly, the west coast of Scotland.
For 12 years I have been urging every Secretary of State for Scotland in every Government in the House of Commons to do something, and I hope that the House will not lessen the power that is given in Sub-section (3) of Clause 1 of this Bill, because even that does not meet what the present Secretary of State for Scotland promised me the last time I took up this question with him in the House, when the House had before it the question of the trawler who defied the law and who happened to have a speedier trawler than this down-and-out, obsolete cruiser, which ought to have been scrapped long ago. The skipper of the trawler went away and boasted about the wonderful skippers that they have around Hull and Grimsby, who can do this and that with the British Navy. That was the thanks they got for letting him get away.
I would like the House to understand that with the men whom we have been trying to defend—the inshore fishermen of Scotland—no other section of the community can compare. The hon. Member for Grimsby (Mr. Womersley) may smile that sarcastic smile of his, which irritated the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) the other day, as long as he likes, but he is doing a disservice to this country in encouraging those trawler skippers who outrage the law of this country by their manner of procedure in tearing up everything that is in the sea—not only trawling the fish, but tearing away the spawn and everything else in a manner that is simply a scandal, and has ruined the fishing industry as far as the inshore fishermen around our Isles are concerned. I have told the House before of the service that these men rendered during the War, and how every Secretary of State for Scot-
land, including a Liberal Secretary of State, has promised me what should be done for these seamen. When they came back from the War these men discovered that all their gear, their ships and everything else, had gone to rack and ruin, and they got nothing to compensate them. One Secretary of State for Scotland, in his wisdom and generosity, gave them power to get grants of money at 5 per cent., but they could have got that anywhere, without going to a Secretary of State for Scotland. He was always going to do wonderful things. He had as much sympathy as any man in the House; he was always running over with sympathy. We have something here, although it does not meet the demands that we have made on behalf of these fishermen, and will not give them the protection for which we have asked.
It is no use the defenders of this Government standing up in the House one after another and saying what the Bill is going to do in defence of the fishermen. It is not going to protect them, and their words will be used against them one of these days, because, as we have pointed out time and again, they can afford to pay these fines—even the £200 fine. Just think of the audacity of one of these skippers defying a British cruiser. If he had been a member of the working-class he would not have done it. He would have been made to pay the price. Those who commit these depredations around the west coast of Scotland have no right to the protection that they get. They ought to be treated as malefactors, because that is what they are. They have stolen the bread out of the mouths not only of the women and men but of the little children in order that they may turn out profits to those who hire them in Hull and Grimsby. I told the Secretary of State for Scotland that they would pay fines of £250 and £300. I suggested that they should do the same as the London authorities and place the power in the hands of the police. You do not find an omnibus or taxidriver defying a policeman in the streets of London, because it is sudden death to him. He loses his licence. It is not as in Glasgow, where we bring him before the baillie and he is fined 15s. or £l. I suggested another method of procedure, that in the event of the authorities catching a trawler it should
be taken into port and kept there and neither the captain nor the men given any money for a month. You can take it from me that no fisherman on any trawler would then obey his skipper when he knew they were inside the three-mile limit. Self-preservation is the first law of nature here, too.
I should like to ask about the speed of the three vessels that are going to be built. I know something about speeding up a ship. I know something about padlocking the safety valve on the boiler. I know something of what they do on a trawler. They send a man up to sit on the safety valve, which no one on a cruiser or any of the Fishery Board's vessels would ever dream of doing, in order to get up steam far beyond what is allowed by Lloyd's inspectors in testing the boilers. They take every risk simply because of what it means to them, that they are getting away with their catch of fish, which may be of the value of £1,000 or £1,500. I suggested years ago that, instead of a vessel, the Fishery Board ought to have seaplanes. It would be very difficult to gauge the speed of the speediest trawler, because they are capable of speeding them up to limits that they would not care to try on the vessels that the Secretary of State has in mind. The fishermen on this side of the Butt of Lewis have taken me there. The bay used to be alive with fish. Now they can get none. There is not a finer type of man—sincere, religious and God-fearing. They told me that they have gone out at night, because they have seen the little light, to try to find out the name of the vessel, and they threw great big stones at them to try to sink their small boat and drive them away. The Germans could not have done worse. I told the House about it years ago. I advised them to get a gun and put a hole into the trawler below the water-line. I would do it. I would teach them a lesson if they came up to Scotland and stole the bread from the women and children.
These men have no other means to get the necessaries of life for their families, and these trawlers come up and deliberately take it away from them. It is because I see here some safeguard for these fishermen that I will most heartily support the Bill. The Secretary of State has attempted, at any rate, to approach the problem. I readily admit that it has
its difficulties. We have been told time and again that this was such a serious affair that it would involve us with foreign countries. The three-mile limit takes us back to the time of Nelson and the battle of Trafalgar, back to the time when they had not a cannon which would fire a ball three miles. That is why you have the three-mile limit. It has nothing to do with fishing, but it has worked out, like so many old ideas, for the protection of fishermen around our shores. It is not the whole of the trawlers that we are atacking, but only certain individuals who have no right to be protected because they deliberately break the law. The Home Secretary, when he was Secretary of State for Scotland, told us that it was impossible to maintain the population on these Islands and that they could not grow potatoes and other necessaries. You may be able to prove by statistics that the Outer Hebrides cannot produce this and cannot produce that, but there is no denying that they can produce beautiful men and women, the finest in the world. I hope the House will vote unanimously in favour of the Bill.

5.43 p.m.

Mr. BURNETT: I beg to move, to leave out "now" and at the end of the Question to add, "upon this day six months."
I should like to dissociate myself completely from any idea of sympathy with or defence of deliberate poachers. I do not want to say a word which could be construed as support of law breakers. We may all disapprove of sheep stealers, but we may not be prepared to go back to the time when we hanged a man for stealing sheep just because a few more sheep happened to be stolen. I have figures which do not bear out the contention on which this Bill is based, that is the prevalent increase of illegal trawling. I oppose the Bill because I think the penalties at present are adequate and because I consider that the penalties that it is proposed to put on are excessive. Also, I think the Bill makes no allowance for honest error, which may easily arise. I have figures for the last 10 years. They differ from the figures given by the right hon. Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) but I understand that he included illegal seining. The Bill deals with illegal trawling only. In these figures I find, taking the total
convictions in Scotland for the last three years, they are only a little over 1 per cent. more than the average for the 10 years.
But it is chiefly with East Coast illegal trawling that I wish to deal, because that is a matter of which I can speak with more authority as the representative of a big east coast port which deals with trawling. In Aberdeen, during the last three years, there were slightly over 38,000 sailings, each sailing being for 4.8 days on the average. If we take the number of convictions for illegal trawling as compared with the number of sailings, we find that on the three years it worked out at about one conviction for every 2,710 sailings. I also averaged it over the 10 years, and found that it worked out at one in every 2,740 sailings. I think that that proves that the number of skippers who indulge in illegal trawling is small. It was said by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Scotland that the number of convictions does not at all represent the number of offences, and the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), who was speaking the other day—I am sorry that he is not in his place—maintained that the convictions represent 1 per cent. of the total number of offences. I ask the House whether, supposing you were in a court of law and a man was found guilty, and one previous conviction was proved against him, and if, to that was then added that that previous conviction only represented 1 per cent. of the offences he had really committed, and in consequence his sentence was increased for these imaginary offences, would that be British justice? That is exactly what we are proposing to do in connection with these trawl skippers.
The hon. Member for East Aberdeen, when speaking the other day, gave a graphic picture of trawlers sweeping the fishing grounds in the north right down the coast from Rattray Head to Aberdeen Bay cleared that coast of fish. If they had done that, as part of that coast is rocky at the bottom, their nets would very soon have been destroyed. I admit that in stormy weather our trawlers have to come near the coast in order to get shelter, otherwise they would be wrecked. I have no doubt that some of these inshore fishermen of which he speaks see lights of a number of these trawlers
out there sheltering in stormy weather and that they believe they are illegally fishing. It would be very easy to prove, because, after all, we have a Fisheries Officer at the fish market examining the fish which arrive, and he could and would be able to distinguish from the catches coming the fish caught in territorial waters. He would report the matter to the Fishery Board, who would promptly send out a cruiser to stop those trawlers from sweeping down the coast as they are said to do.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: The trawlers would go back to Grimsby.

Mr. BURNETT: They would see to it that it did not happen in future.

Mr. MACOUISTEN: How could the fishery officer know the difference between the fish?

Mr. BURNETT: An expert could tell. I have it on the authority of the fish trade that it is easy to tell by their appearance the fish which are illegally trawled.
It is not Aberdeen, as was stated, which is the centre of the illegal trawling on the east coast. The centre of the illegal trawling lies in those villages in the constituency of my hon. Friend who was speaking the other day. It lies in the small villages along the Moray Firth where seining goes on. I asked a question a few days ago as to the number of offences of illegal trawling and seining respectively on the east coast, and the reply I received was very significant. It said that the number of convictions for trawling in the last three years was 7, 3, 0, and the number of convictions for illegal seining was 9, 9, 17. The totals for trawling were 10 in three years, and for seining they were 35, three and a half times as many. It has been maintained, and it was stated by one of the speakers this afternoon, that the seine net vessel is very much smaller, and consequently that it is not a fair comparison. Trawlers vary from 90 to 145 feet in length, and a small trawler is very little bigger than a big seiner. The trawling industry brings in 75.8 per cent. of the white fish which are landed in Scotland and the seining industry brings in 5 per cent. In other words, the trawlers do 15 times as much in the way of bringing in fish, and yet the seiner
convictions are three and a-half times as many as the convictions of trawlers. Why, then, does this Bill not apply to seiners instead of to trawlers? That I cannot understand. Is it because illegal trawling is an offence for which people are to have penal servitude or to be shot as the case may be, whereas illegal seining is a trivial offence, or is it because the illegal seiner is simply a poor man and the illegal trawl skipper a millionaire?
I should like to give instances, because they have a bearing on this matter. One is the case of three skippers of seine boats who were spotted by hydroplane in the Moray Firth. They pleaded guilty to illegal seining, and also to fishing without lights. Their reason for committing the offence was one of sheer desperation, as all three were poor men trying to get something to enable them to give themselves and their families some of the necessities of life. The sheriff said that he knew perfectly well what a splendid lot of men they were, and the respect in which they were held in every way. He imposed a modified fine of £3, did not order the forfeiture of the gear, and admonished them for fishing without lights. I want to compare the case of an Aberdeen fisherman who pleaded guilty to illegal trawling and on whose behalf it was stated that so hard was the accused finding it to live that he had been selling some of his furniture in order to keep his family going. The sheriff had no option but to fine this man £40 and to order his gear to be forfeited.
I was anxious, because I thought it had a bearing on this question, to find out what was the fate of that man ultimately, and whether the existing law was a deterrent or not. I received a report on the point. It was dated 17th February:—
The facts in connection with this matter are deeply distressing. He was fined £40 and given a time limit in which to pay. This time limit was extended to 2nd March. There appeared to be small chance of his being able to meet the fine on the due date. He borrowed £20 towards paying the fine as he was averse to going to prison, and he was unable to owing to unemployment to raise the balance of the money. He had to sell the furniture in his house, including a piano, a chest of drawers, and all the tables and chairs in the sitting room to keep his family in food. His little son died last week and he had had to borrow the money to pay for burial expenses. I am trying to get him a billet, but I fear there is little possibility of any trawler owner employing him in view of the provisions of the new Bill.
Why are the seine net men who do illegal fishing called splendid men, and why has the trawler skipper to suffer as this man has done? I am not in any way condoning the offence in what I say, but in this Bill the whole burden falls not so much on the trawler owner as on the skipper himself. The trawler owner can avoid all the penalties under the Act simply by not employing the man. If the man has been convicted within the last five or three years, as the case may be, it simply means that he will not be employed for another term of years and during that time he will have lost his skill. Consequently it is upon the skipper that the punishment falls. I agree with what has been said as to the owner, that it is unfair to punish him vicariously because, after all, the owner could not be responsible, in Aberdeen at any rate. I speak for Aberdeen. I have been informed, and I have tried to verify it and have found nothing to the contrary, that the owner has never paid the fine. I found two cases only of fines of over £40 where the men have paid the fine. All the rest of the men have gone to prison, and therefore I take it that as a general rule a fine of over £40 is absolutely a deterrent.
I have spoken of the man who was guilty, but I should like to go on to the still harder case of the man who is in honest error, which cases, I believe, very often occur. A considerable proportion of the cases which arise along the East coast are due to honest error. In one case which was reported to me, a man was coming from the fishing grounds in the North. There was foggy weather, and he was fishing when passing near the Moray Firth, when suddenly he saw a motor fishing boat from Macduff. He presumed that he must have come in towards the coast and steamed eastward out to sea, but did not haul up his gear as he should have done. The motor boat which was about 28 miles from the home port dropped a buoy and took the number of his vessel. He was prosecuted, and fined £40. That man, I am certain, had no intention at all of committing an offence such as has been imputed to trawl skippers by previous speakers; it was a case of honest error. I have had particulars of another case sent to me by a man who was on the
watch at the time. I should like to read it, but part of it is in unparliamentary language. The case in which he happens to have been a witness occurred four years ago. The vessel had been working a whole night in a position within 3½ miles off land
with a mark buoy which I swear was never passed. I knew that the fishery cruiser was cruising there as we saw her lights all night.
I am trying to put it in his own language. He knew that the cruiser was there and had no intention of illegally fishing. He goes on:
The next morning we were arrested for illegal fishing. I was in charge of the watch at the time, and had we any doubt of our position we could easily have been in a different position before the cruiser approached us. As we had steamed out the evening before we thought we were absolutely safe. The officer of the fishing cruiser swore that we were in a position inside the buoy and had watched us towing off land for 20 minutes, which was untrue as I am ready to swear with my last breath.
That man honestly believed that he was not doing illegal fishing, and I am certain that a number of cases are like that. These men will be among those who will be penalised by not being employed anywhere for three years after the date of the offence.

Sir ROBERT HAMILTON: Were those two eases tried in court?

Mr. BURNETT: Yes. The sheriff said that the witnesses must be present and he adjourned the case for six weeks, and then imposed a modified penalty of £45 and ordered the restoration of the fishing gear. If the sheriff had taken land miles into consideration he admitted that the ship would have been outside the limit, but in taking nautical miles it was just inside. The man, obviously, had no intention of illegal fishing. These cases may arise and I think that provision should be made in the Bill to ensure that people who fall into honest error will not be black-listed and deprived of future employment.
The Bill only relates to the trawling industry on which the country depends largely for the supply of fish it gets. In my opinion it would be a great mistake to do anything to reflect upon the trawling industry and injure their prospects of catching fish. There is one point in connection with
Clause 4 that I desire to raise. It is a provision which says that in going through territorial waters—
the boards of the trawl and the net shall be inboard and the warps shall be detached from the boards.
This will involve a certain amount of hardship. Smaller vessels fishing about five miles out wait until the last possible moment if a storm is threatened and then rush at once for port. The shackle pins in the shackle are apt to get jammed or bent and have to be cut out and in some cases this may take more than an hour. If a storm comes and seas are washing over the vessel it is dangerous work, and a good deal of time may be lost if the ship has to wait to get out these pins. That is a provision which ought to be amended. I hope the House will consider the Bill carefully because it imposes penalties which are fantastic, which skippers cannot pay, and it is on them that the burden will fall.

6.3 p.m.

Mr. RICHARD LAW: I beg to second the Amendment.
It is evident, in spite of the persuasive speech just delivered by my hon. Friend, from the course of the Debate that the Bill commands a widespread measure of acceptance in the House. That, of course, is the only reason for the Bill. We are given this Bill, not so much because it is likely to be a good or useful Measure, as that it will be popular, at least at first. There has been in Scotland a great demand for some measure of this kind, but I believe that demand to be entirely false, and even when it is met the position of the inshore fishermen in Scotland will not be at all benefited. It is a very drastic Bill. In some of its aspects it is cruel and vindictive; but more than anything else I think it is a perfectly futile Bill for it will not achieve the object which the Government have in view. The genesis of the Bill reminds me of some of the stories, with which I expect hon. Members are familiar, told by George A. Birmingham about Ireland. In these stories the Chief Secretary or the Lord Lieutenant was accustomed in the summer recess to visit the scattered fishing villages on the coasts of Ireland, where the people said to him, "Are you going to give us a pier or a
lighthouse, it will be a great benefit?" When the Chief Secretary returned to Whitehall he would make a grant; the pier or the lighthouse would not be built, but the people in the Irish villages would be happy for a little time. In the same way the right hon. Gentleman made a tour of ports in the west of Scotland, and this Bill is the result of his tour. When it is found to be ineffective it may be that he will have to make another tour, and then there will have to be piers and harbours just as there were in the stories of George Birmingham.
It is claimed that the terrible conditions, and they are terrible indeed, into which the fishing population on the coasts of Scotland have fallen is the result of the unlawful depredations of the trawler. I cannot believe that any strong case has been (made out for that contention. The seiner is responsible for far more damage than the trawler, and if there is scientific evidence to show that the trawl, being dragged along the bottom of the sea, destroys life, there is just as much evidence to show that the trawl by ploughing up the bottom of the sea fertilises it and renders it fruitful, just in the same way as a plough on land. There is sound evidence on that point. If the trawler is responsible for the condition of the inshore fishermen in Scotland to-day it is not the result of any illegal action on the part of trawlers but the result of their very existence, because the undoubted fact is that the trawler as an instrument of production is far more efficient, economical and effective, than the inshore fisherman, with his small vessel, can ever hope to be. The fact is that the trawler with all its advantages in production has very much destroyed the market of the inshore fisherman. So far as the trawler is guilty at all, that is the real reason for the decay of inshore fishing in Scotland. It is unfortunate, but there is certainly nothing whatever illegal about it.
It has been urged by the right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir I. Macpherson) that if you have a law you must at least enforce it. That is perfectly true up to a point, but in this case of illegal trawling in Scotland it is not so much the fault of a weakness in the law as a weakness in the policeman. If you have patrol vessels pursuing trawlers for a night and a day, that is not the
fault of any weakness in the law; it is the fault of the inefficiency of the patrol boat. That, apparently, is to be remedied; and I should have thought that it was going far enough without introducing this Bill. But, apart from that, it seems to me that before you enforce a law more strictly than you have in the past you should inquire whether or not it is a good law. I think that this three-mile limit, as applied to the whole of the Scottish coast and to the trawlers, is an excessive and vexatious restriction, because there are wide stretches of waters within the three-mile limit which are never fished at all, unless by chance some trawler comes along and fishes them. The inshore fishermen do not fish them at all. The hon. Member for Inverness (Sir M. Macdonald) said that the reason was that the trawlers had driven the inshore fishermen off and that if you prohibited the trawlers they would return. There is no logical support for that view. The inshore fishermen left them because it no longer paid them to fish these waters and they will not return until it pays them to fish them again. It will not make these waters any more profitable to forbid an occasional trawler to go into these limits.
The Bill is really an attempt to put the clock back. It is a Bill which, perforce, prohibits illegal trawling, but it is much more ambitious than that. It is a Bill which is trying to prohibit the twentieth century. It is trying to protect the handworker, the small fisherman, in Scotland against the pressure of economic forces and against the tremendous mechanical development which the trawler section of the industry has witnessed in the last generation. I do not for a moment say that the fishing population of the coast of Scotland is not entitled to protection; but may I say that I am surprised to find the right hon. and gallant Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) supporting this Measure which is essentially one to protect an inefficient industry. I have no objection to protecting a big industry which is of the greatest importance to the social life of the country, but I think that the Scottish fishing industry could be better protected by some other method than by the vindictive and punitive restrictions proposed to be imposed on the trawling industry by this Bill. It would have been better for the Secretary of State
to have tried to divert some of the fishing population into the trawling section and give them assistance to buy trawlers of their own, or perhaps equip themselves with seines in the same way as do the Danes, who have a similar kind of coast line to that of Scotland.
I am afraid that, strongly as I feel on this Bill, we are not going to get a very great deal of support in the House for our proposal, and we must resign ourselves to that fact. But I hope that we shall be able to persuade the Government and the Secretary of State to modify some of the asperities which the Bill contains. It really is difficult to exaggerate the degree of apprehension and indignation with which these penalties are regarded by the trawling industry as a whole, not merely or mainly by trawl owners. I was astonished to hear the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) say that these penalties were not bloodthirsty enough, and even more astonished when he compared them with the penalties under the Birds Protection Act, the implication being that people under this Bill were better off. It is a fact that a man who kills another in a motor car accident would not suffer such severe penalties as the man who inadvertently strays over the three-mile limit on some deserted loch in Scotland.
If there is one provision in the Bill which is resented by all sections of the trawling industry, it is Sub-section (3) of Clause 1 under which an owner becomes liable for the offence of a skipper. That is a brutal and vindictive provision, not because it penalises the owner who is quite able to look after himself, but because it penalises the skipper. If a man commits one offence, which may be a grave one or may be only technical, he is thrown out of employment for three years. He has not chance of getting work as a skipper and probably very little chance of getting any other kind of work. It is as though his master's certificate had been taken away from him. Usually a master is only deprived of his certificate in cases of gross negligence or gross irresponsibility, and it seems monstrous that a master should be liable to lose his ticket for what may be a purely technical offence. I, no more than my hon. Friend the Member for North Aber-
deen (Mr. Burnett), would defend the case of the skipper who puts out his lights, blacks out his number-plate and steals into a Scottish loch under cover of night. That is indefensible, but the penalty is certainly adequate even for that offence.
There are, however, other cases. A trawler may be fishing near the limit, and there is no reason why we should prohibit trawlers from doing so, if that is where the best fish are to be found. Possibly owing to the movement of the vessel at sea the skipper may get an imperfect sight and stray over the three-mile limit inadvertently. He may be caught and convicted of poaching. I speak without a knowledge of Scottish law which I understand differs from Admiralty law. If such a case occurred in English waters the Admiralty court would allow for the man's error of judgment, but I understand that in Scotland no such allowance is made. The man would have to be convicted, and a fine would have to be imposed even if it were only nominal. That conviction would stand, and that man would never get a job again even though his offence was admittedly technical.
There is also the question of evidence. I am not clear how it is to be decided whether or not a skipper has run over the three-mile limit. If it is to be left to a qualified fishery officer, and if the evidence of such an officer is to convict a man, well and good. But if the uncorroborated and unsustained evidence of an inshore fisherman, who is in an even smaller boat than the trawler, with little facilities for fixing his position, is to be taken as sufficient to convict a man of poaching under this Bill, then it seems to be extremely drastic and unnecessarily harsh. I hope the Government at a later stage will be able to consider some of the points which have been raised by the other two hon. Members and myself who have been the only critics of the Bill so far. I believe that under the Bill, as it is drafted, the trawling industry, not the trawl owners but the industry as a whole, including the men who go to sea, have a legitimate grievance. I believe that the Government could attain the objects of this Bill such as they are without subjecting the industry to those grievances.

6.21 p.m.

Sir R. HAMILTON: I am glad that the House has had the case against this Bill put with moderation and very temperately. Hon. Members are now aware of the chief objections raised by the trawling industry to it. I would like to remind the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Burnett) that some of the cases which he quoted may have been hard cases, but that hard eases make bad law, and we have to consider the enforcement of the law as it is. This is not a Bill to alter the law, but a Bill to enforce the existing law. I think the hon. Member for South-West Hull (Mr. Law) was himself unnecessarily harsh in describing the Bill as vindictive, cruel and futile. I hope to be able to show that, so far from being vindictive, it is not nearly so drastic in some respects as the recommendations of the Mackenzie Committee or the proposals in the private Member's Bill which was brought before this House. It is certainly far less drastic than some of the laws in force in foreign countries.
I should like at once to take the opportunity of congratulating the Government on having brought in this Bill. Some of the newer Members of this House may be inclined to forget or are perhaps not aware of the long history which is behind this question. It dates back to a period before the War, when the first efforts were made to meet the complaints put forward by the inshore fishermen. The hon. Member for South-West Hull rightly said that it is much better, in matters of this kind, to prevent an offence than to put on heavy penalties for the offence. There I agree with him and we are all glad to recognise the action taken recently by the Scottish Office to improve the fishery patrols. We were particularly glad to-day to hear of the three new cruisers which have been put on this service. In that connection I would ask the Secretary of State whether special attention will be given to the valuable services rendered by the small fast boat "Vaila" which is stationed at the Shetlands. That boat works in connection with the Fishery Board and the fishery cruisers and can be very effective in patrol work owing to her high speed and her low free-board. Although she cannot keep at sea she can crawl out under the shelter of the shore without being seen and she has effected some useful captures.
There is only one of those boats in the service at the present time, and it would be useful if another one could be put on the West side of the islands also, at such a place as the Orkneys.
I approach this question with considerable feeling. I have been in this House for over 12 years representing the same constituency and month after month, year in and year out, this complaint about illegal trawling has been in my ears. When I go among the islands I am shown the places where trawlers come in, where the people on shore can see them, with their numbers covered, inside the limit. At night, without lights, they crawl in close to the shore and in places from which the inshore fishermen and the crofters used to draw their fish, they cannot now get any fish. Splendid fishing grounds like the North Sound in the Orkneys have been spoiled for them. That used to be one of the best sounds of all, but now, as a man told me recently, it is not worth while letting a line down into it. Unfortunately, in the centre of that sound there is an area which is just outside the three-mile limit, so that it is possible for trawlers to come into the centre of the sound and it is then easy for them to cross the border-line. Speaking of the border-line, I would point out to the hon. Member for South-West Hull and the hon. Member for North Aberdeen, that it is the duty of the trawler to keep away from it. If the trawler gets over the border-line the trawler is at fault, and as my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) pointed out, there is a wide sea and plenty of room outside.

Mr. LAW: What if they are driven in by stress of weather?

Sir R. HAMILTON: Of course if a skipper sees bad weather coming he will make for shelter, but that is a very different matter from trawling inside the three-mile limit.

Mr. NUNN: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that the trawler stops trawling because the weather turns bad? I have had some practical experience of trawling in my younger days, and I have never known a trawler to stop because the weather was bad, unless it was excessively bad.

Sir R. HAMILTON: I agree that a trawler does not often stop trawling because of bad weather, and that there are occasions when a trawler has to come inshore. But if she comes within the limit she ought to take the steps which are provided for, to show that she is not at work within the limit. It is open to every trawler to come in if the necessary steps are taken to show that she is not working within the three-mile limit. I wish to emphasise the point already made that this Bill is not directed against the trawlers. We all recognise the great work which the trawlers do and the enormous amount of fish which they bring ashore for our population. We are only concerned in this Bill with the people who break the law. I am astonished at the amount of objection which has been raised outside to this Bill. The document which has been circulated to Members of the House signed by the president of the British Trawlers' Federation is astounding, and moist have been written very largely in ignorance of what the Bill contains. It starts by describing the Bill as—
the most unfair and one-sided Measure that has ever been submitted to Parliament.
An "unfair and one-sided Measure," because it has been found that the penalties for illegal trawling have not been sufficient, and it is proposed to increase them. Then it is stated that the Bill is based solely on the evidence of inshore fishermen. I would remind the gentleman who wrote that document that the Bill is based on the findings of the Mackenzie Committee, the most authoritative committee that ever went into the subject. If anyone is still in doubt as to whether steps should be taken to enforce the law, I recommend him strongly to read that report. It is the report of a body of men who, with the greatest care and over a considerable period, took evidence from everybody concerned and came to definite conclusions on the matter. Their conclusions are to a very large extent embodied in the Bill.
The Title and the scope of the Bill might be referred to. Hon. Members will see that it is a Bill to amend the law with regard to the enforcement of enactments prohibiting the use of certain methods. It is not to amend the law as regards the three-mile limit or anything
of that sort; it is only to amend the law in order to enforce the enactments which already prohibit trawling within these limits. That is the whole object of the law, and when hon. Gentlemen opposite ask why trawlers are singled out and nothing is said about seineing, the answer is that this is a law dealing with illegal trawling and not with illegal seineing, which is a different matter altogether. It is possible that something may have to be done to deal with illegal seineing, but at the moment we are dealing with illegal trawling. I am glad that the efforts of the late Member for East Fife, Sir Duncan Millar, have been referred to, because for a number of years he endeavoured to get a private Member's Bill through—a Bill which I and others backed. Over and over again we had the ill-fortune of not drawing a good place in the Ballot. On one occasion we got the Bill through Committee and reported, but it never reached beyond that stage. It is evident that a Bill of this importance is one that really ought to be taken up by the Government. Now that the Government have taken it up, we may hope to see it very soon on the Statute Book.
The hon. Member for North Aberdeen referred to the small number of convictions, and used that as an argument to show it was unnecessary to make any alterations in the law to increase the penalties. He must realise perfectly well how difficult it is to get a conviction. How are you to get a conviction in the case of a trawler with its number covered; and suppose you are able to find out the number of the trawler which has committed an offence, how are you to collect sufficient evidence on a lonely part of the coast to satisfy the court that the trawler was within the three-mile limit? I should like to point out to the hon. Member for South-West Hull, when he queried the evidence on which a skipper might be convicted, that all the evidence is taken in a court before highly trained lawyers. They have to weigh and value the evidence, and his suggestion that on the evidence of a line fisherman a trawler captain might lose his livelihood is, I can assure him, not possible. The sheriff before whom these cases are taken insists on very strict evidence before he will allow a conviction.
To show how much less drastic this Bill is than what takes place in foreign countries, I should like to refer to the position in Iceland. That country depends almost entirely for its revenues on its fishing, and it knows how vital it is to protect the inshore waters. In Iceland the offence of trawling within territorial waters is punishable by a fine of from 10,000 to 20,000 croner, and, in addition to these penalties, a skipper who is guilty of a repeated offence can be sentenced to not less than two months' imprisonment. Criticisms have been made with regard to making the owners responsible, but in Iceland the ship may be seized and sold to cover fines and expenses. So that there is not only the very heavy penalty on the skipper, but the ship may be seized and sold. In Norway the maximum fine for illegal trawling is 5,000 croner, and, in addition, the ship with the catch and the gear can be confiscated irrespective of whether the owners are implicated in the offence or not. When you come to Russia, you really get something serious. There, illegal trawling is punishable by imprisonment or forced labour for a period not exceeding one year, again with confiscation of the fishing appliances and of the fish caught illegally, and a fine not exceeding 500 gold roubles.
Hon. Members can see, therefore, how very strictly other countries protect their inshore waters, and how very much more severe are the penalties that they impose than the penalties which are suggested in this Bill. As regards the point raised by the hon. Member for North Aberdeen as to whether the skipper pays the fine, I can tell from my own experience of cases where a fine of £100 has been put on the skipper. In one case—I do not say he came from North Aberdeen—he wired to the owner and the £100 came back, and the skipper said, "I will be at the same place to-morrow night." That is an indication of what has been happening under the law as it exists, and it is a strong argument for making the owner of the ship liable if he employs a skipper whom he knows is guilty of such practices as have been committed. It is a more satisfactory way than dealing with the certificate of the master of the ship, and the device in the Bill for putting a responsibility and a liability on the owner of the vessel if he employs a convicted skipper is far the best way of get-
ting over what is an undoubted difficulty. As regards the liability of the owner, if an offence is committed on his ship by the skipper, I should again like to refer hon. Members to the report of the Mackenzie Committee, where it is definitely stated:
The principle of attaching liability to the owner of an offending vessel, as distinct from the master, is recognised, under existing legislation, by the forfeiture of the gear, the seizure of the fish (Acts of 1892 and 1909), the recovery of fines, and the detention of boats (Section 20 (2) of the Sea Fisheries Act, 1883, and Section 1 (3) of the Steam Trawling (Ireland) Act, 1889).
So that it is not a new idea which is brought into this Bill. The novelty is the application of it in the case of offences by trawlers. It will be within the knowledge of hon. Members that vessels which are occupied in smuggling, where the offence of smuggling is proved, are liable to seizure, and a boat that is used for poaching salmon is liable to seizure. The fact that the trawling owner is to be made liable in future for the offences of his skipper if he knows that he has been convicted of illegal trawling in the past will have a most excellent deterrent effect. Seeing that this Measure is long overdue, I hope, having regard particularly to recent most unfortunate happenings, which have been referred to in the Debate, that it will be very soon on the Statute Book, and that in connection with the improvements in the patrol services which the Scottish Office have introduced, the offences which have been so numerous in the past will become far less numerous in future and that very few people, either skippers or owners, will come within the province of the Bill.

6.40 p.m.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: The ground has been so admirably covered by previous speakers that I propose to detain the House for only a few minutes. The Mover and Seconder of the Amendment did not seme to realise the enormity of the offence of illegal trawling. It not only takes away the fishing of the inshore fishermen, but it destroys the fishing industry for the other trawlers. It limits the number of fish because the fish are smaller inshore, and as they grow they spread out to the open sea. It destroys the chances of people catching them, and it is a selfish act because it disregards the other trawlers. It is no use saying that it is only an occasional
offence. I do not think that there is much Scottish poaching, and I do not think that the Aberdeen trawler owners, some of whom I know, are the men to encourage their skippers to do anything irregular. It is a different thing when you come to Grimsby and Hull.

Mr. LAW: I do not know of any boat sailing from Hull that fishes off the coast of Scotland at all.

Mr. MACQUISTEN: There have been convictions of Hull and Grimsby skippers. The owners must know of the irregularities committed by their skippers, for they are getting the benefit. It is like a barman selling after hours; he does it for the benefit of his employers, for it increases the trade and makes more profit for the licence holder. It is no use the licence holder saying, "I do not approve of this, and I told him not to do it," for he gets the benefit of it; and in the case of the boats, the owner gets the profits. The skipper may even have a share in it, and that makes it all the worse. I do not think the Bill will hit the Aberdeen people, because I do not think Scotsmen do these things, but in passing the Bill the English people may feel they are getting back something for Bannockburn. In the time of Charles II no English fishing boat was allowed within 28 miles of the Scottish coast. That shows what an enlightened monarch he was. There is no use talking about the number of convictions; that has nothing to do with it. It is the number of offences that count, and I never go to any of the islands where I do not find men wringing their hands because of trawlers coming off their coast within pistol shot and destroying their fishing. Nothing can be done by them and, in despair, they have given up making complaints, for it is very difficult to get hold of the offenders.
There is a loch called Lochindaal in Islay where they used to get the finest plaice or flounders, as large as small halibut and they were beautiful fish. The trawlers came and ruined that fishing. During the War, when the trawlers were mine sweeping, the fish returned, and at the end of the War Lochindaal was full of fish, and the villagers there used it as part of their food. Shortly after the War up came one, two or three trawlers—I do not know the number, but there was more than one—and they spent about
48 hours there and swept the whole place out. Their numbers were covered up and they came back some time afterwards, again with their numbers covered up. The people could do nothing to stop them because they knew the men aboard were desperate fellows. The same thing happened in Portnahaven, a little village not far away from Lochindaal. There is a fine sweep of sea there and there used to be 30 inshore fishing boats manned by fine sturdy fishermen who sent their catches very largely to Northern Ireland. The trawlers destroyed that fishing. Talk about coming within the three-mile limit! They came so close to the shore that they ran aground on one occasion, and some of the men were drowned.
It is the same all over Scotland. The fishery cruisers are not able to catch the trawlers. It is said that seaplanes are wanted, but when a seaplane did go up and get alongside them the trawlers would not allow the airmen on board, but threw lumps of coal at them and drove them off. I think the penalties in this Measure are very moderate. The whole question is, Can these same evil-doers, poachers or pirates, make illegal trawling as worth while when the penalty is £200 as when it was only £100? We have had them coming into Campbeltown, paying the £100 and telling the fishermen that they would go back to the same place and get it back in a night; and they have gone off blowing their whistles in defiance as they cleared the loch, just to show how little they cared about the penalty. I question very much whether the £200 will be a deterrent. I think that instead of saying the fine is to be one "not exceeding £100," it should be "not less than £100," leaving it to the discretion of the sheriff to fix the amount if he finds himself confronting some truculent, defiant fellow. On a third conviction the offender may both be fined and get a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months. Prison may be some deterrent, but I do not know that it will be, because I am inclined to think that the fellow who is cruel enough, and heartless enough, to go in and poach on the territory of the inshore fishermen, knowing the effect the action will have on the fishing ground, is already such a hardened case that a few weeks in durance vile will not have much effect upon him.
Of course, there will be cases where a man breaks the law through inadvertence, going so near the line so as inadvertently to get over it. I have known people trying to compose a letter to slang somebody else and wishing to go as far as ever they dare without being slanderous. People who write letters of that description very often find themselves before a jury and cast in damages. If in these cases a fellow is sailing so very near the line that a slight error of judgment puts him over it, he really ought to take the consequences. Of course, if his story can be accepted, his offence is not so serious, and I have no doubt the Sheriff Substitute will take that into consideration in fixing the penalty.
I think it is a pity that we cannot do a little more to the owners of trawlers engaged in illegal fishing, although the owner should, of course, have an opportunity of clearing himself; but where they have guilty knowledge I should like to get at them both. I am satisfied that in many cases where men proceed again and again to break the law it is because they have got a nod—which is "as good as a wink to a blind horse"—"You get the fish and I will not inquire too carefully how you got it." I have no doubt that they will pay up readily enough—at any rate the English owners will. An Aberdeen owner would, no doubt, have some contempt for an Aberdeen skipper who is caught, feeling that he is not as smart as he ought to be. The Englishman will pay, because he is more likely to have given direct encouragement to the skipper, and may fear that the latter will give him away. I would like something put into the Bill to bring in the owner in every case, unless he could show that the skipper had acted maliciously, with the object of involving him in a transgression of the law. I have known licensing cases where a licence holder was "run in" for some act committed by his barman, and has shown that the barman was under notice and had threatened to get him into trouble, and in that case the licence holder has escaped conviction. We need some provision of that kind, but if we could get at the owner as well as the skipper it would very largely meet the situation.
The point has been put forward that a skipper should lose his certificate. If
there is one body of men for whom one has great pity it is those who go down to the sea in ships. Numbers of merchant ships have certificated officers as crew, owing to the tremendous falling off in the number of ships at sea. If a skipper has been convicted a number of times and is deprived of his certificate for five years, at any rate he can go on board a trawler as one of the ordinary hands. It will do him good and give him experience. If he has been a hard master himself it will do him good to get a dose of his own medicine. On the whole I welcome this Measure, which is long overdue. It seems years since this action was recommended, after long and careful investigation. In the meantime, great damage has been wrought round the coast of Scotland, though, admittedly, by a comparatively small number of trawlers. A small minority is quite enough to wreck inshore fishing. I hope that this Measure will have the support of all the best opinion in the trawling industry, and that they will assist in seeing that it is properly administered and in getting evidence against their brethren who sin against the light by engaging in this nefarious practice.

6.52 p.m.

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: I would like to say how much pleasure it gives me, and how much it will give to my constituents in East Fife, to note the congratulatory references to my predecessor in the representation of that constituency. The hon. Member for South-West Hull (Mr. Law) was not, I think, as sound and as unassailable in his arguments to-night as is usually the case. He used a great many adjectives to describe this Measure, calling it cruel, vindictive and futile, and I am not sure that he justified the use of any one of them. One could only describe this Measure as futile if one could prove that it will have no effect, and the hon. Member did not attempt to do that, at any rate to my satisfaction; and I am not sure that it is possible for any one to prove such a proposition at this stage. Then, one could only say the Measure is vindictive if the present law does prevent illegal trawling, but every eyewitness who has spoken this afternoon has shown that this illegal trawling continues to exist and, in fact, is increasing. I can add my humble meed to that testimony as re-
gards the Firth of Forth. Every night there one can see these illegal trawlers. Again, one can only say that the Measure is vindictive if its provisions do not correspond with the possible gain that comes to an offender. It is obvious from the evidence that there is great gain by illegal trawling—much greater than the fines represent.
I confess that I was somewhat amazed to hear the speech of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Burnett). I have heard that among the industries of that great city there is one concerned with the making of tall stories, and I came to the conclusion that the hon. Member must really be a director of that industry, because a taller story than that which he told to the House cannot be imagined. The most remarkable feature about it was that, as in the case of my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Hull, he presented his case with the most solemn expression, with no sign of a joke. It is a pity that the hon. Member for North Aberdeen did not rehearse his speech in Aberdeen before coming here. He ought to have tried it on his constituents first. If he had done so he would have found out that the Aberdeen County Council, in a resolution passed some little time ago, called upon the Government to increase the fines for illegal trawling and indeed, called upon the Government to produce this Bill.

Mr. BURNETT: The Aberdeen County Council has nothing to do with Aberdeen City which I represent, and from which the trawling takes place.

Mr. STEWART: The hon. Member cannot suggest to me that the City of Aberdeen is entirely separated from the County of Aberdeen, and that the County Council of Aberdeen have no interest or no knowledge of the fishing community.

Mr. BURNETT: I suggest that the county council have a better knowledge of inshore fishing, and that the Town Council of Aberdeen would have a better knowledge of trawling.

Mr. STEWART: The hon. Member is giving his own case away. He admits that the body which speaks has a better knowledge of the inshore fishing problem than he has.

Mr. BURNETT: I did not discuss inshore fishing.

Mr. STEWART: I am suggesting that if he had met his own neighbours, if not his constituents, he would have received his answer.

Mr. BURNETT: I did meet my constituents, and have spoken to them on this subject.

Mr. STEWART: I can only suggest that the hon. Member should have listened to as well as spoken to his friends. But that is not all. In the city of Aberdeen, for which my hon. Friend claims to speak, is a body of fishermen representing the Central Council of Scottish Fishermen, the Scottish Herring Producers' Association. That body passed a resolution in December supporting this Bill. Therefore, of what good is it for the hon. Member to come here talking to us as if he represented the considered, firm and and convinced opinion of the city of Aberdeen?

Mr. BURNETT: I am suggesting that the herring fishing centre is not in Aberdeen but in the Moray Firth.

Mr. STEWART: The hon. Gentleman is being obstreperous, I think, because he knows that the Herring Producers' Association deal not only with herring matters but all matters affecting fishing round the coast of Scotland. For example, they have passed resolutions, of which, I think, the hon. Member has probably had a copy, dealing with the new Unemployment Bill, with share fishing and other matters of that kind, and that council would not have passed such a resolution if they had not considered themselves fit and proper persons to do so. In any case, that is a fact. I propose to say only this other word. It is held that there is a case against these additional penalties. The present system is not satisfactory if you are going to maintain the crofter population in the North of Scotland. No reasonable man would deny that, except apparently, my hon. Friend. It is difficult to understand why the hon. Member for North Aberdeen is against this increase of penalties: an increase of penalties for what? Not for doing something that is lawful but an increase of penalties for doing something which is illegal, against the best interests of the country and against the written law.
He says it is an unfair attack on the trawling industry. I ask him, Why? How is it an unfair attack on that industry if, as he says and as I believe, the great mass of the men in the trawling industry are law-abiding citizens? How can it be an attack on men whom the law is not going to touch at any stage? He says there are only two or three dozen cases of conviction in the last 20 years. If out of 20,000 inshore fishermen 19,999 are not affected by this Bill, why arouse all this indignation in connection with it? Why object to a Bill which is not going to touch them at all? The hon. Member must, in fact, choose his ground before offering his views to the House. Either he speaks for the majority of the trawling industry and says they are a body of poachers—a suggestion I do not support for one moment, but which alone would justify his case this afternoon—or he speaks for the minority threatened by this Bill; and in that case one can only conclude that the hon. Member for North Aberdeen has joined the ranks of the lawless. I must say I am surprised to find a Conservative of the standing of the hon. Member for North Aberdeen a strong supporter of the Constitution, coming here and voicing the complaint of common poachers; because that is, in effect, what he is doing. One reads of cat burglars. The hon. Member has apparently become the leader of the cod burglars in the North of Scotland. This Measure is brought forward, because there is a need for greater penalties, for the present penalties are not effective in preventing poaching. This Bill, supported as it will be by more active police patrols will bring, we believe and hope, to the crofter fishermen in the North of Scotland and to the inshore fishermen in the Firth of Forth and elsewhere, a measure of protection which they demand and have the right to demand. For that reason, I support it.

7.4 p.m.

Sir M. WOOD: The Bill we are discussing to-night has been received with a chorus of approval. As far as I can see, most of the ground has been covered. I do not want, therefore, to detain the House very long. I, also, support the Measure, but I am bound to say that I do not receive it with the great enthusiasm that it has been received with in some quarters of the House. I have a
long acquaintance with the controversy between the line fishermen and the trawlermen in Scotland, and I think that there can never have been an occasion when a Bill to deal with illegal trawling has been considered in the House so calmly as the present Bill is being considered. In the past any attempt to deal with illegal trawling has created storms of bad feeling, and it is pleasant to see this Bill, which increases the penalties so considerably, treated so calmly and coolly as it is being considered to-night.
I hope I shall not be misconstrued if I say that I rather regret the necessity for this Bill; and I can say so even though my name has been on the back of a number of Bills of the same kind introduced in the House in recent years. I regret the necessity for the Bill, because I realise that the penalties that are being proposed are almost vicious. They are very, very severe indeed, and I should have liked very much if it had been possible to deal with the question of illegal trawling without having recourse to these severe penalties. I think that the Government in the past—not merely this Government but all Governments—must accept some responsibility for the fact that a Bill of this kind is necessary today. After all, what we have to remember in the enforcement of the law is this, that it is not so much the severity of the punishment that deters law-breakers as the certainty of punishment; and I do believe that if in the past Governments had seen to it that they took more drastic steps than they did to enforce the law, it would not have been necessary to increase the penalties. In every Debate we have had on this question, Member after Member has told us stories of the reports which fishermen make as to trawlers going into the inshore grounds and trawling without let or hindrance. If the Government Bad taken proper steps to detect these trawlers, I am quite certain that they would have gone a long way to put down illegal trawling by this time.
It is admitted by the Government that their policing in the past has been inefficient, and I suggest that if illegal trawling is going to be put down it will be put down, not so much by the severe penalties that are proposed in this Bill, as by the effectiveness of the policing
arrangements which the Government are going to put into force. For these reasons, I am, in some respects, more interested in the proposals which the Government are to make to provide faster cruisers, so that trawlers that really break the law will be caught and brought to judgment; and I hope that the Government will be successful in bringing them to justice and in thus doing much to stamp out this grievance from which fishermen, in the North of Scotland particularly, have suffered for so long. But I should like to say this, that I think the trawlers have to some extent a grievance in the fact that the policing arrangements have not been as effective in the past as they might have been. I have no doubt that when they see that the policing is going to be effective, they will keep away from grounds where they would involve themselves in trouble.
A great deal too much can be made of what is going to happen to inshore fishermen as a result of this Bill. I sympathise very much with inshore fishermen who have lost their gear by the depredations of trawlers, and particularly I sym pathise with those poorer fishermen who live in the outer islands. But I hope that the House and the public will not run away with the idea that merely stopping illegal trawling will of itself bring prosperity to these fishermen. There is no doubt illegal trawling has been a contributory cause of the depression among fishermen in that quarter, but it is only one cause, and in my opinion not the main cause; and, if the Government are satisfied merely to deal with illegal trawling and leave the other causes untouched, I regret to say that the condition of these fishermen will not be very much changed.
This question of trawling has a different aspect in one part of the country from that which it has in another. Not only that, but the attitude of the fishermen towards trawling is continually changing. Within my own experience there has been a very great change indeed in public opinion with regard to trawling generally, and there is not, if I may say so, the same hostility, say, on the shores of the Moray Firth to the Aberdeen trawler owners and trawl fishermen that there used to be when I was a boy living on the shore of the Moray Firth. And that change of view with regard to trawling
generally is, partly, at any rate, connected with the fact that seine-netting is now so common throughout Scotland. It seems to me that any Government which is taking upon itself to lay down a policy with regard to trawling and does not at the same time deal with seine-netting is really dealing with only one aspect, and one part, of a very great subject.
I should have liked the right hon. Gentleman when he was introducing this Bill to make some reference to this great change that has taken place among inshore fishermen in Scotland in the last few years, because I think no policy dealing with trawling can be effective which does not take notice of the great change that has taken place within the last few years. I hope that even yet we may have something from the Under-Secretary, if he is going to wind up the Debate, with regard to this question. I realise that the question of seine-netting and the restrictions upon it is a very difficult and thorny question indeed, but at the present time it is being dealt with in a most illogical fashion. In one part of Scotland fishermen are allowed to fish with the seine-net right up to the edge of the sea; in other parts they are not allowed to go within three miles. As far as I can see, there is no logical reason for the restrictions which are placed upon it in one part of the country and not in another.
There is another question which has not hitherto been dealt with in this Debate, but to which, I think, a few brief references might be permitted. No one has mentioned the thorny question of the Moray Firth. I am not going to dilate upon it here, but I would have liked the right hon. Gentleman, who introduced the Bill, to make some passing reference to that most vexed question, and to give some idea as to whether he will ever be able to deal with it, whether he is trying to deal with it, or has given up all hope of being able to deal with it in a satisfactory manner. I am satisfied that the question of trawling in the Moray Firth, like a number of other difficult questions in regard to fishing at the present time, can only be dealt with by international regulation.
I hoped some time ago, when the Netherlands Government invited us to attend another conference to revise the North Sea Convention, that that was an
opportunity by which we would be able to deal with those questions. After waiting for a long time, the Government replied that they must decline the invitation, and the opportunity of dealing with those questions by international regulations went entirely, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will soon be able to lay down some sort of large-scale policy which will show the fishing industry that he knows exactly where he is going, so that they may have some idea how fishing is to develop in the future. The questions with which I have dealt are outside the details of the Bill, but they are not irrelevant, and I trust that the Government may be able to give us some light upon them in the near future.

7.18 p.m.

Commander COCHRANE: In the early part of his remarks, the hon. Member for Banffshire (Sir M. Wood) expressed the view that the problem of catching offenders was a more important one than that of imposing penalties, and with that I most cordially agree. I say that with the appropriate amount of regret and from practical knowledge, having myself carried on some of those operations. I should add that it was not within several thousand miles of the jurisdiction of my right hon. Friend, so that I feel fairly safe about that. My right hon. Friend announced that he was going to build three new cruisers. Had he not done so, I had intended to make a suggestion to him for the Amendment of Section 11 of the Act of 1883 by which fishery officers are appointed.
It had occurred to me that he might, if necessary, in order to ensure that, so far as possible such offences were not committed without being reported, enlist the services of the inshore fishermen in the guise of fishery officers, for the purpose of reporting such offences as occur. For every offence which is seen and dealt with by one of the fishery cruisers, there is a very large number which are seen but not reported by the fishermen who happen to be there at the time. It would not be possible to give such sea fishery officers as I have suggested the full powers which are given under the Act of 1883. That power includes the power of arrest, and so on. The right hon. Gentleman clearly takes the view that this matter can best be dealt with by Government vessels, and I do not wish therefore
to take up the time of the House in elaborating what might, in other circumstances, have been a necessary alternative.
I will confine my remarks very briefly to the observations made by the hon. Member for North Aberdeen (Mr. Burnett) and the hon. Member for South-West Hull (Mr. R. Law) when they moved and seconded the rejection of the Bill. The hon. Member for North Aberdeen sought to draw a parallel between trawling and seine netting. He quoted figures of the number of convictions of the different types of fishing. It is well known that the convicitions of trawlers bear no true relation to the number of offences committed. When comparing the proportion of convictions for trawling and seine netting, we must remember that the ground on which the seine net boats can work is very restricted, and is very much less than the ground over which the trawlers can pass. In addition to that, the seine net boats are practically stationary throughout the whole of their operations. There can be no comparison between the difficulty of catching a seine net boat within the three-mile limit and the difficulty of catching a trawler within that limit.
The hon. Member went on to refer to Clause 4, which makes it necessary for a trawler to unshackle her gear, and heave it inboard when she comes into territorial waters. He said that that was a hardship, because in the case of a stiff shackle it might take an hour before the boat could get it stowed away. I do not wish to be cynical, but I suggest to the hon. Member that the best cure for a stiff (shackle is frequent use, and if those boats would unshackle their gear every time they came into territorial waters they would have no difficulty in future. The hon. Member for South-West Hull described the Bill as futile, and he went so far as to say that he considered the three-mile limit to be vexatious. I am quite unable to follow him in that. If any hon. Member doubts the damage done to stocks of fish by trawlers within the three-mile limit, I would invite them to study what happened in the much wider spaces of the North Sea after the War. It is all set out in the reports of the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea. There are charts showing
where, for one hour of fishing, you could catch one, two, or three cwts of fish.
If you look at those charts for the period immediately after the War you will find that the areas in which you could get a hundredweight of fish for one hour's trawling are very widespread; but that area in the North Sea has been steadily narrowed, and has narrowed very much indeed south of the Dogger Bank. If that can happen in the North Sea it is clear that on the coast of Scotland which are suitable for trawling the effect will be very great. I do not think there will be any dispute about the fact that the trawling carried on in those comparatively restricted areas must be destructive in the long run. Obviously, the trawlers select the best ground and the most prolific area.
Hon. Members who oppose this Bill have raised the question of the skipper who inadvertently enters the three-mile limit, and they have sought to say that there might be hard cases in those circumstances. One great advantage of the three-mile limit is that, as a rule, it is quite easy to fix your position within three miles of the coast. If the limit is extended to 10 miles, there would be a very practical and serious difficulty. I might offer a suggestion to the two hon. Members, and to the skippers of those trawlers who feel that they might inadvertently pass within the limit; it is that they should treat the three-mile limit in the same way as they would treat an unlighted coast on a foggy night.

7.25 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE: I would not have intervened in this Debate at this late hour but for some of the rather unusual arguments that have been put forward by the opposition to the Bill. I am sorry that the hon. and gallant Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage) has left his place, because I wanted to chide him somewhat upon having broken the ancient and honourable tradition of the House in regard to keeping a Scottish Debate to Scottish Members. We generally assume that the role of an English Member during a Scots Debate is to come in and be taught, or to come in and learn, and to display a becoming sense of humility while he listens to the oratory of such hon. Members as the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and others who have
spoken to-day. That is by the way. One of the statements that the hon. and gallant Member for Louth made as representing the trawlers was that they did not want to infringe the laws of Scotland. If that is so, why is there any opposition? This Bill is for the purpose of preventing any infringement of the law of Scotland.
Let me come to the two objections raised by the hon. Member for South-West Hull (Mr. Law) and the hon. Member for Banffshire (Sir M. Wood) in which they pointed to the penalties. Why is a penalty provided? It is provided as a deterrent. If you do not make the penalty big enough, you will not effect your purpose, and that is one of the reasons why the Bill should be strongly supported. It definitely makes the penalty so heavy that once a trawler has been caught for infringing the law, that will probably be the last occasion on which it will do so. An hon. Member said that there was only one conviction in something like 2,700 sailings, and because of that infinitesimal percentage it was not worth while bringing in the Bill, but he does not realise that that one conviction would probably mean the loss of three or four months' livelihood to several hundred fishermen.
I have listened to the case being consistently misrepresented by the Opposition. I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his hon. Friends upon having brought in this Bill. It has been wanted for months. It was wanted in the days when the late Sir Duncan Millar introduced it, and I am glad that it has been left to the National Government to introduce it in the interests of the country as a whole, and to show that those interests are safe in its care. It is a good thing to have the support of the official Opposition to the Bill, although it always makes one a little suspicious when the Opposition supports a Bill promoted from the Government side of the House, In this case, however, we are all out for the good of the inshore fishermen. I will not say again what these fishermen did in the War. They provided us with a background consisting of the finest men of our mercantile marine, and they deserved the consideration which my right hon. Friend is now giving them. They have no insurance scheme whereby to safeguard their welfare and well-being. Most other trades have an insurance scheme to fall
back upon, but when their trade is bad and their catch is low, the fishermen have no such scheme. That is one of the reasons why this Bill should receive unanimous support, and I ask hon. Members to withdraw their opposition so that the Bill may get the unanimous support of the House.
I would also support the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) that an Amendment should be accepted to give some compensation for nets destroyed by trawlers within the three-mile limit. That is one of the things about which, I know, fishermen, especially in my constituency, feel very keenly. It is so difficult for them to replace their gear. The percentage interest charged is high—5 per cent.—and any compensation which can be given to them for damage to their gear by trawlers should be very carefully considered by the Government.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: The hon. and gallant Member said that there was a tradition in the House that English Members did not take part in Scottish Debates, and he attacked the hon. and gallant Member for Louth (Lieut.-Colonel Heneage) because he had spoken. I think I have been a Member of the House longer than my hon. and gallant Friend, and I have never heard of that tradition. I have always heard that an Englishman was not so overwhelmed with pride that he wanted to butt into everything, but I have always been told that even a Scottish Debate can be brightened up a bit.
My reason for intervening is because of the speech made by the hon. and learned Member for Argyll (Mr. Macquisten). I have listened to many of the speeches during the Debate and I have noticed that they were mostly interesting and highly accurate speeches. None of them fell into the great mistake into which the hon. and learned Member fell. I should like to make it perfectly clear that I think the three-mile limit should be kept very clearly, that it should be well defined and well known and that every possible support should be given by the Government to the enforcement of the three-mile limit. That is a fair position to take up, but my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Argyll kept on saying that the Englishmen were poachers. Englishmen do not poach. It is admitted
that there are certain people who break the law with regard to poaching. We have experience of that in my part of the country. Almost invariably the people who do it are foreigners and the real trouble is to catch the foreigners. If we could have in the West country the support in that matter that is being given under this Bill it would be very much appreciated.
The whole matter boils down to the very simple fact that there is a row going on, a purely local row in this case in Scotland, between the seine net fishermen and the trawlers. Would it not be wiser for the Government to tackle the whole question? It would save a great deal of trouble if they would make up their minds in regard to the seine question and the trawling question in regard to what is going to preserve the largest possible amount of fish on our coasts. I should like to see the three-mile limit extended if possible for our people. This question goes beyond Scotland, but I will be brief, if the hon. Member for Bridge-ton (Mr. Maxton) does not mind.

Mr. MAXTON: The hon. Member need not shorten his speech for my benefit, because I am not proposing to intervene.

Mr. WILLIAMS: I am sorry, and I am sure the House will be sorry, because there is nothing that lightens up a Debate more than the intervention of the hon. Member. It has been admitted by every Scottish Member who has spoken with weight to-day that there is no question of any English trawler poaching in Scotland, but there may be wild men about. The intricacy of Scottish law is very difficult for Englishmen to understand, but I do say that Englishmen will keep the three mile limit every time. I shall be glad if the Secretary of State for Scotland would insert in the Bill a new Clause to the effect that absolutely nothing in this Act shall in any way apply to English fishing vessels that may be up in Scotland. I hope the Home Secretary will help me to get an Amendment to that effect. If he did so the Bill would have an easy passage and the whole House would approve the position which I have taken and would support the Bill in every way.

7.36 p.m.

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for SCOTLAND (Mr. Skelton): Those hon. Members who have listened to the Debate must feel that there is a very large measure of unanimity as regards the provisions and principles of the Bill and I, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, thank those who have spoken for the clearness with which they have stressed the necessity of dealing with this problem as far as Scotland is concerned. I do not propose to go separately through the observations made by hon. Members. The House will recognise that a great many of the observations were Committee points. On the one side we were urged to increase the penalties and on the other side to make them lighter. Nearly all such topics are more suitable for a discussion in Committee, and promises have been made by those who have expressed these various views that they will put down Amendments in Committee. That will be the time and place to discuss them.
In the speeches of the two hon. Members who opposed the Bill there were certain general propositions and it is only right that I should deal with them. I should like to address myself to some observations made by the hon. Member for South West Hull (Mr. Law). During his speech I found myself for almost the only time during the Debate at some variance with the tone of the remarks made. I must say quite frankly that I disagreed with the observation that this Bill was the result of a hurried visit by the Secretary of State for Scotland to the west coast. That remark did not show the temper and outlook that we are accustomed to from my hon. Friend, but seemed to be the crude breathing of some brief that he had got from elsewhere. It is well known to anyone and to none better than my hon. Friend that so long ago as 1923 a most powerful and representative Committee investigated the whole of this question and pointed out very clearly how very dangerous and injurious was the effect upon the life of large numbers of our fellow countrymen engaged in fishing of this practice, then prevalent and now still more prevalent, of illegal trawling. There can be in these circumstances to anyone who knows Scotland, certainly anyone who knows the Scottish coast,
particularly the west coast, absolutely no excuse for any suggestion, however remote or indirect, that the motive or characteristic of this Bill is political. It is a social and economic Bill and it is only those whose acquaintance with Scotland must be very sudden and transitory who can regard it as otherwise.
In that connection may I say a few words on a matter which was touched upon by the right hon. and learned Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir I. Macpherson). He expressed the hope that this Bill was not going to be the whole of the Government's policy in regard to the inshore fishing industry. I can assure him and the House that that is not the case. In the first place, as my right hon. Friend told the House, we are already renewing the patrol fleet and renewing it by finding designs of ships that will combine the qualities of Q ships with the necessary speed. According to the naval architect it is going to be an interesting problem, but I am assured that there are very good hopes of the problem being satisfactorily solved and that ships indistinguishable from trawlers or drifters as the case may be will yet be built, with a turn of speed which will greatly surprise those who are being patrolled. But that is not the end, although it is an objective of our policy in regard to the inshore fishermen of Scotland.
We are trying to do something—much has already been accomplished and we hope to do still more—towards the improvement of freights between the islands, the highlands and the mainland in order that the transport of fish may be cheaper.
We are also doing what we can to improve the transport facilities by trying to see in what way the shipping routes and the shipping time tables can be improved, for it is already clear that under the new situation, with the experience which we have already had of the more effective policing, there are opportunities for the inshore fishermen which are sound from the economic point of view, and of which from the social point of view it is impossible to overrate the importance. The House may rest assured that this Bill is not an isolated piece of legislation but it takes its place as the foundation of a constructive effort of statesmanship, the object of which is to
improve the condition of our inshore fishing people and in particular to bring back to those western islands and lochs to which, from the poverty of their soil and the doubtfulness of their climate, fishing must be of immense economic importance, the full advantage of secure fishing in the future.
I should like to deal with a most important point, and that is that already this winter in districts where our drifters have been on patrol there has been a very marked disappearance of the trawlers. And secondly there has been a very marked increase of the fish inshore. The experience of one winter is obviously inconclusive, and it may not be more than chance, but whereas this year you have had, round the coast of Skye for instance, large shoals of herring coming in, the absence of the trawler has meant that instead of these shoals being swept up as soon as the news went round, they have remained within comparatively narrow limits, affording the inshore fisherman an opportunity of catching them. There is the further fact of which we have had evidence, though I speak with every qualification here, that there do seem to be signs already of a slight return of confidence to the inshore fishermen. I am told, though I confess I have not yet very full information, that there are signs of more inshore fishing around Skye as was indicated by the hon. Member for Inverness (Sir M. Macdonald).
I said a moment ago that this Bill is not to be regarded as a thing by itself. It is the foundation of a piece of constructive work. Why foundation? For this reason, that unless you get confidence into the minds of the inshore fishermen they will not undertake the work of getting fitted again with gear, nets and in some cases even with boats, and it is obvious that they are right in their caution. It would be extremely foolish of them to fit themselves out again if the first dark night, as has so often been the case, their gear might be swept away. So confidence is the foundation of this policy. I am not at this stage making any large promises to the House as to its success, but I do say it is utterly unfounded and a gross error and misrepresentation of the facts to represent this Bill as a political Bill brought in by the Government to get a Vote here or there or to save a Vote in this island and not lose it in another part. We know, not
by the experience only of official reports, but some of us from years of experience, that there has been an immense amount of illegal trawling. It must stop, and nothing that is required to bring about a cessation will be left undone.
We think this Bill is well designed to bring that about. For the first time, the trawler owners are brought into the Bill, and they will, after the passage of this Bill, have no excuse for employing skippers who have been convicted. I think the argument against bringing the owner under penalty until his skipper has once been convicted is very strong, because if the skipper is a man against whose character there is no bad mark, how can you in the first instance make the owner liable? But when the skipper has been convicted and the owner knows it, the clear duty of the owner is to avoid the risk that the man may again break the laws. The best way to teach people to do their duty is to punish them if they do not do it, and that is the foundation of this Bill. I will not make any promises, but we are satisfied that there is to-day an opportunity for the inshore fishermen which there has not been in the past.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: If the hon. Member is leaving the question of ownership and penalties, will he be good enough to answer the question I asked: why the Government departed from the recommendations of Lord Mackenzie's Committee as to the suspension of licences?

Mr. SKELTON: We departed from the recommendation of the Mackenzie Committee in this respect, because there were difficulties in suspension or the taking away of a master's certificate for this class of reason, and we felt that exactly the same or sufficiently similar results could be obtained by the method which we have adopted. As I understand it, the suspension or taking away of a master's certificate is a thing which is done only for very special causes, and there was good reason, I think, for not extending the causes if we could find any other machinery which might have the same result. If not, we might have been driven once again to consider the actual provisions of the Mackenzie Report, but my hon. Friend, when he considers the provisions of the Bill, will find, I think, precisely the same result obtained by the alternative method.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Before we leave that, what is your reply to the suggestion that the ship should be laid up for a month? That penalises everybody connected with it. When it is laid up it is not earning anything, and they are all penalised.

Mr. SKELTON: We did not adopt that suggestion because, if you detain a trawler in port for a month, you detain with her the whole crew, and there is no question that, under the discipline of a ship, it is not the crew who are responsible. Therefore, it would have been unjustifiable to have separated the crew from their livelihood for a month simply on account of the misdeeds of the owner or the skipper. That is the reason why we have confined the detention of the ship to port to cases where the owner refuses or neglects to pay a fine. If my hon. Friend considers again, I think he will see that there is force in the contention that we should not penalise the crew for action for which they are not responsible.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: That is the very reason I want it done. The fishermen would see that they did not go inside the three-mile limit if they were going to be penalised.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Lord Mackenzie's Committee made recommendations as to the cancellation or suspension, not only of the master's certificate, but also of the certificate of registry of the vessel. That would to some extent meet my hon. Friend's point.

Mr. SKELTON: There we get on to extremely difficult and technical ground. I do not think the crew of any vessel, whether a trawler or an Atlantic liner, can be expected to disobey orders, whatever the consequences of obedience might be. I am afraid the suggestion of my hon. Friend might lead to mutiny on the high sea on a large scale, and that is why I cannot fall in with his suggestion, although I sympathise with his object. I do not think I need deal further with the question of the detention of the ship. The suspension of the certificate of a ship also raises extremely technical questions, and, we found, on examination at the Board of Trade, that it would not have been as effective as the Mackenzie Committee thought it would be. It would not, if I remember rightly, have prevented
the ship from fishing, but would have restricted the control of the State over her. I say that with qualifications, because, although I had to go into it fully at the time, all that is in my mind now is that the suggestion, though admirable in design, was technically unsound.
I have said that at this stage we would not make rash promises to the House, but I can imagine nothing more desirable than that this Bill should be, as I hope it will be, successful. It is of the highest importance that we should not further decrease the population of our coastline and our rural districts, particularly the population that lives by the sea and, unless a whole area of Scotland is to go partially derelict, it is of the utmost importance to the West and the Islands—[An HON. MEMBER: "And the North!"]—to all the further parts of Scotland, that every effort should be made to bring it about that fishing shall be one of the economic foundations of their lives.
It is not the case, as the hon. Member for Hull has suggested, that we are trying to put back the hands of the clock. Quite the reverse. There is ample evidence that the line fishermen, congregated for instance round the coast of Skye, can make a good profit out of line fishing where the transport facilities are good. It may be added that the fish the line fishermen carry, when it gets to market, is of a far higher quality than the fish from the trawlers, and there is no foundation for the proposition that, if you give the linesmen and inshore fishermen generally a better chance of getting a catch, it will be abused. I say, again, there is room in the sea for the seine-net fishermen and the liner. We are as much against illegal seine-net fishing as illegal trawling, and one of the three ships before the House in the new Estimates will be a smaller ship especially designed to deal with illegal seine-net fishing. There is no foundation for the statement that we are the friends of illegal seine-net fishing. These are the suggestions with which some hon. Members have sought to bolster up a completely hopeless case.
There can be no case for illegality and for the trawler coming inside the three-mile limit. Nobody would suggest that the economics of trawling depends upon illegal trawling. I asked a deputation of trawlers whom I saw if it was their position that they must go inside the three-mile limit and without hesitation they replied "No." It is a known fact that it is unnecessary for trawlers to go inside the three-mile limit. Let them go outside the limit and bring back their fish. Let them not attempt to destroy the livelihood of inshore fishermen, who in Scotland outnumber them by many thousands. Inshore fishermen are an important element in our social structure, and in my judgment they will get only the barest degree of safety and security when this Bill is passed. Confidence is what they desire, confidence is what we shall do our best to give them. I believe that if our policy succeeds, whether in two years or five or 10—it cannot be fully successful in a very short time—before we have passed away we shall find that we have restored to a position of sound economic strength the inshore fishermen of Scotland, and there will then be no one more ready than the trawl owners, who are men of the sea themselves to thank us for what we have done.

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: Would the Under-Secretary give an assurance with regard to Sub-section (2) of Clause 4, as to which a question was asked by the hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Milne)?

Mr. SKELTON: That is a Committee point and it is far better that nothing should be said about it until the Secretary of State and myself have had an opportunity of studying quietly the various suggestions which have been made.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House for Thursday.—[Sir G. Collins.]

Orders of the Day — ASSESSOR OF PUBLIC UNDERTAKINGS (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords].

Order for Second Beading read.

8.4 p.m.

Mr. SKELTON: I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."
This is a short Bill and it requires only few observations. In Scotland in connection with the valuation of railways, canals, tramways, and a number of other undertakings, there is an office called the Office of the Assessor of Railways and Canals, consisting of one assessor and a staff of six. Its staff, under the provisions of an Act of 1897, used to receive pensions in accordance with the Civil Service superannuation law. That law has subsequently been altered, but as no legislation dealing with the assessor's office has since been passed the staff receive their pensions under the conditions which existed in 1897. This Bill provides that in future their superannuation, pensions and so on shall be governed by the rules for the time being governing Civil Service pensions. Thus their position with regard' to pensions will be brought up to date, and they will in future share any improvements that may be made. For the rest I need only say that the opportunity has been taken to make the title of the official under whom this staff works correspond with the enlargement of his office which has occurred in recent years. Up to now he has been called the Assessor of Railways and Canals. Under Clause 2 he becomes the Assessor of Public Undertakings in Scotland.

Mr. MACLEAN: There is nothing in the Bill to which anyone can take exception.

Orders of the Day — LAND SETTLEMENT (SCOTLAND) [MONEY].

Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 69.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

Motion made, and Question proposed.
That it is expedient for the furtherance of land settlement in Scotland to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by
Parliament of a sum not exceeding two hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds as a grant-in-aid of the Agriculture (Scotland) Fund during the year commencing on the first day of April, nineteen hundred and thirty-four, and a like sum during each of the two succeeding years, in lieu of the sums specified as Deing available for the annual replenishment of the said fund in Section five of the Small Landholders (Scotland) Act, 1911, and in the Sixth Schedule to the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929."—(King's Recommendation signified)—[Sir G. Collins.]

8.8 p.m.

Sir G. COLLINS: This Resolution is explained in Command Paper No. 4476, which was presented to Parliament last December. The Committee will expect me to review briefly the reasons for the proposed acceleration of land settlement in Scotland. Under successive Governments during the last 20 years Parliament has always recognised that, as regards land settlement, Scotland stands on a different footing from other parts of the United Kingdom. In Scotland there has always been what I might describe as a land hunger. As far back as 1912 over 5,000 applications were received for land when the first attempt was made to deal with smallholdings. Much has been done since then, but the demand for holdings is still very widespread. When I assumed office I was frankly doubtful of the wisdom of expensive schemes of land settlement, in view of their cost to the State, but before coming to a final decision I resolved to make a thorough investigation of the whole problem. A year ago I made a comprehensive inspection of Scottish land settlement schemes, in the course of which my advisers and myself interviewed a very large number of smallholders. The Committee might be interested to know some particulars of those interviews. Although I am choosing particular cases they are representative cases. The first man I interviewed, as I sat in his small house, had a four-acre holding.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: In what part of Scotland was it?

Sir G. COLLINS: It was near a large town on a line drawn south of Glasgow and Edinburgh. This man kindly showed me the figures of his income and expenditure for each month in the years 1931 and 1932. I found, after having added up his figures and deducted his expenditure for rent, rates, feeding-stuffs
and all costs incidental to running a four-acre holding, that the average income during those years was £2 10s. a week, apart from the produce taken from the holding for consumption by himself and his family. That first interview encouraged me to continue my inquiries. Another man happened to have been at one time a tradesman in a large city. When asked how he came to get his holding he stated that he spent his holidays with a smallholder two years before, and was taken with the idea of possessing a holding himself and he applied for one. In the meantime he went to live with a smallholder in order to learn the business. With pride he showed me that his outbuildings had been fitted with electric light, made from his own plant. He was rearing chickens and had upwards of 800 birds. He said he hoped to have 1,000 next year. I chaffingly said to him: "I suppose you will have 1,200 the following year?" He replied: "Oh, no, 1,000 is all I can conveniently manage." He was selling his produce to a shop at retail prices, less a certain discount. The next case was that of a collier. He had erected a glass-house which cost him £275, and was growing tomatoes and other fruits. In the course of conversation he appeared not to be dissatisfied with the price he was receiving. He sent his produce by motor to a neighbouring town and appeared to be satisfied with his success.
After having visited numerous settlements and having had numerous talks with smallholders, I analysed the situation from information supplied to me by my advisers, and I came to the conclusion that these men were prosperous in their degree at a time of very low prices. Here I would say this: If any hon. Members desire to visit any settlement and see the results for themselves, I shall be happy to do anything I can to facilitate their visits. I am convinced that anyone investigating these schemes will be impressed not only with the pride that these men take in their holdings, but with the undoubted fact, speaking broadly, that they are working with success. Hon. Members may be sceptical of this policy to start with, but they will be convinced by personal investigation of the value of these schemes to the State. The cases I have mentioned are in no way excep-
tional. Investigations amongst smallholders generally showed clearly that the majority of these men were prosperous and contented, especially—this is a point I emphasise—where their holdings were of small size and situated in the vicinity of populous places which offered good markets for poultry, eggs, fruit, market garden and glasshouse produce—in short, commodities which are most valuable in a fresh state and are produced at their best under the personal attention of men and women who are directly interested in placing their goods on the market in the best possible way.
Not only is that their experience, but, as hon. Members know and can visualise, the vast network of motor omnibuses, swiftly moving to-day along modern roads, brings the countryside within easy and cheap access of the town, and gives to the housewife living within, say, 10 or 15 miles access to a town where she can sell her produce at reasonable prices, and, if she desires to do so, can visit the shops and cinemas and see her friends. The situation to-day is very different from what it was many years ago, in view of this vast development of motor transport, especially in Scotland. Notwithstanding this background, however, it appeared to me that an enlarged policy of land settlement could not be justified as a business proposition unless our costs were materially reduced. Many months were spent scrutinising costs, examining plans, securing the expert advice of builders, and analysing the cost of roads and other works; and, by dint of this careful scrutiny, aided by the fall in the rate of interest, which permits of lower quotations by contractors, and by securing expedition and economy through equipping holdings in advance of the selection of applicants, the cost of holdings of this type has been materially reduced. A number of settlements, comprising over 100 holdings, have already been created on the new basis.

Mr. MACLEAN: What is the acreage?

Sir G. COLLINS: The average is under nine acres. They vary according to the lie of the land—the contour of the land. In the light of these facts—the prosperity of these small landholders near industrial areas and the reduction in costs—the Government have felt justified in asking Parliament to accelerate the policy of land settlement. In the Estimates for
the past year the sum of £100,000 was provided. This Resolution makes provision for £750,000, spread equally over the next three years; and I am sure it is unnecessary for me to say, to any hon. Member who knows this problem, that to carry out a policy of land settlement economically a continuous programme, spread over a number of years, is essential. No business proposition—and land settlement is purely a business proposition—can be carried through successfully unless plans are made well in advance.
The aim under this Resolution is to complete 1,000 holdings within three years without undue loss to the State. If this experiment succeeds, and if our expectations are realised, the next Parliament should be in a position to press forward confidently with a more comprehensive scheme. What the next Parliament may do must rest entirely with them, but it seems to me that Great Britain, faced to-day with the extreme economic nationalism that exists in the world, and with the resulting difficulties which hinder the flow of international trade, may well require the combined efforts, not only of the farming community but of smallholders as well, to play an ever-increasing part in the internal economy of this country. In that case the towns will inevitably look to the countryside for an increasing supply of foodstuffs, which would enable the towns to exchange their products for food produced in Great Britain. These, very briefly, are the reasons which have prompted the Government at this time to come to the House of Commons and ask for this extended provision. We admit that in the past the cost to the State has been heavy, but, if our costs, as they have done during the last 12 months, and as we hope they will continue to do in the future, remain fairly constant at the present figures, and if we are enabled to secure the necessary land that we require, we believe that we can find in Scotland large numbers of people who are willing to throw their hearts and lives into this work. Because we feel that there is that land-hunger to be satisfied to some degree in Scotland, I beg to move this Resolution.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. LEONARD: I should like to say, first of all, what I think will be the opinion of every Member of the Com-
mittee, namely, that the action which the Government have taken is indeed a laudable one; but I also remember that the right hon. Gentleman dealt with the same subject on a previous occasion, I think a little over a year ago, and at that time I endeavoured to put before him the possibility of certain restraints being applied in the selection of persons for the occupancy of these holdings. The fear in my mind at that time was that the selection might be confined to unemployed people, or others who were not unemployed, but who in the main were from country districts. I hope that, when the scheme receives this further support, the Government will not lose sight of the possibility of quite suitable material in the form of men existing in our cities and towns, and that that point will receive especial consideration. That is the only point on which I have risen to speak.
If my recollection is right, the right hon. Gentleman, when he was putting the details before us on the previous occasion, dealt with the renunciation of holdings that had taken place. I have not the actual records by me, but I remember specifically that he referred to the fact that 133 holdings had been surrendered. It does not matter much from my point of view whether it was in one, two or three years; it is the fact that they were surrendered that I want to touch upon. I want to put before the right hon. Gentleman the possibility of ensuring greater success by the introduction of an experiment which has not yet been undertaken. It is that the holdings should be put out on a co-operative basis, with the strict understanding that the persons concerned within a given area should co-operate for certain well defined needs of their farms, and that the Government help which would be given them in the form of equipment might be conditional upon the acceptance by them of this co-operative basis. I have in mind a farm in Perthshire, of, I think, 690 acres. Previous to its acquisition by the Government, there were working on it 12 fully employed men and five who were partly employed; but after the Government took charge of it for holdings, it was able to sustain, and as far as I know it may be sustaining to-day, 50 men all the time, with additions at certain busy periods of the year.
I do not know if there is any other area of a like description which might be at the disposal of the Government for the further extension of this work.

8.25 p.m.

Lord SCONE: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise that any criticisms that I have to make of the scheme are due not to any desire to see it fail, but rather to my very great anxiety that it should prove a success. No one would seek for a moment to deny that it is a most laudable scheme, but, at the same time, there are certain aspects of it which cause me a very considerable amount of anxiety, which I hope the Under-Secretary will be able to dispel. First, I should like to ask who are to be the occupants of the new holdings. If they are to be, as the last speaker suggested, persons drawn from the cities, that is all right provided they are originally of country origin, but if it is to be suggested that the present time, when skilled agriculturists are finding it very difficult indeed to make both ends meet, is a suitable time to take raw material from the town totally unskilled in agriculture and expect them to make a living on the land, I can only enter a most emphatic dissent. Then there is the question of the tenure of the new holdings and of the rents to be paid. I have not gathered what is to be the position in regard to the acquisition of the land. Is it to be bought by the Government?

Sir G. COLLINS: indicated assent.

Lord SCONE: I am glad to have that assurance. Now we have the question of rent. Paragraph 8 of the memorandum accompanying the actual Resolution states:
It is estimated that initial expenditure on the holdings will vary from £650 to £800 per holding according to its type, size and situation, and that the rents obtainable will approximate to a return of 3 per cent. on the initial capital expended.
Three per cent. on £650 to £800 works out at from £18 10s. to £24, and I submit that rents which will run to something like £5 per acre are very severe indeed to expect the new landholders to pay. Certainly those of us who own agricultural land are not getting anything like that amount of rent, and I cannot see that any land is likely to be charged such a very high price unless it is market garden land in the near vicinity of a large
town already in a high state of cultivation and probably provided with glasshouses. The land to be made available for these new holders, I imagine, is very likely rough pasture land of a value of somewhere between 1s. and 10s. per acre. I hope very much that I have got hold of the wrong end of the stick in regard to these figures, because otherwise it seems to me that to expect a man farming from five to nine acres to pay a rent of anything up to £25 is a condition of affairs which does not exist in ordinary agriculture to-day and one which will throw an enormous strain upon the new landholders. As regards the initial expenditure of from £650 to £800, I do not think the right hon. Gentleman said anything about the houses to be occupied by these landholders. Are we to understand that the £650 includes the cost of putting up a house?

Sir G. COLLINS: Yes, from £650 to £800 is the total cost of the house, steading, roads and water supply necessary to create the holding. It is to vary according to the amount of land and the original price paid. The figures mentioned in the White Paper are the total cost based on the experience of the last 12 months.

Lord SCONE: I am rather afraid that it is a very small amount to provide an adequate holding with house, steading and whatever else it is necessary to put up. It is useless to produce any kind of agricultural produce unless you can sell it at a profit. It is true that the Memorandum says that the intention is to set up these holdings in the vicinity of urban markets. If they are to be in the vicinity of urban markets of any size, that is going to cut out a very great deal of Scotland, including these areas in the North, where we should be particularly glad to see an extension of this kind of holding, because many of the small Northern townships are already pretty adequately provided, and to set up fresh holdings in their vicinity would not mean that a ready market would be found, but rather that the new holdings would come into fierce competition with those already in existence, and that, I imagine, is one of the things which the Government must be very anxious indeed to avoid.
There is also this point to be considered. Have the Government thought what is a desirable minimum for a family
to make on its holding if it is to have a reasonable standard of living. I do not think anyone would consider less than £2 per week at ail adequate. Of course, we should all like to see it a great deal higher than that, but to expect a holding of from five to nine acres to produce another £100 a year, in addition to the rent that I have mentioned, seems to me also to be slightly on the optimistic side. My main anxiety is that the setting up of these holdings should not mean the creation of a class of crofter who would have to put up with the standard of living that was prevalent in the Highlands 100 or 150 years ago. I have a certain number of smallholdings in my constituency. Some of them are reasonably prosperous, but others have the greatest difficulty in making both ends meet. It is not the slightest use putting people on the land unless you are reasonably certain that they are going to have a standard of living at least equal to that of the agricultural labourer to-day, and his standard is at the moment lamentably low. I hope tine Under-Secretary will give me an assurance on the points that I have mentioned, because we are all very anxious to see many people at work on the land.
The last few years have seen a considerable drain of agricultural workers, and an enormous amount of land go out of cultivation. No country can hope to be prosperous if they have a peasantry which is gradually declining, although the town populations are all the better for the recruitment of blood from the country, which up to the present they have been getting year by year. Some of us feel that to attempt to establish a large number of new holdings at the moment, although those who are already cultivating the land are doing it so successfully, is an experiment of a slightly hazardous nature, and, while we wish it well, we cannot help but watch it with a considerable amount of anxiety, in view of the various considerations which I have endeavoured to put forward to-night.

9.36 p.m.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: This is a great day for Scotland. In the earlier part of the afternoon we had before us a Measure which, I hope, is going to benefit the sea-going population, and to-night we have the prelude to a Measure which, I hope, will be of enormous benefit to our
rural population. I was extremely interested to hear what my right hon. Friend had to say when he introduced this Money Resolution. He deserves the thanks of his colleagues in this House for the manner in which he has tackled the problem. It is clear that he has put his whole heart and soul into the matter and that he is attempting, in the Measure which has been foreshadowed, to give the people of Scotland a great advantage. I can well realise that when he started upon his investigations on this problem he was frightened for more reasons than one. My hon. Friend the Member for St. Rollox (Mr. Leonard) drew attention to the fact that no fewer than 133 holdings were renounced. They were renounced for one reason only, and that was the extraordinary cost and difficulty financially to maintain them. The reason in many cases was that they were entered upon at a time when costs were exceedingly high. Immediately after the War, agricultural costs were higher than at any other period in the history of this country, and young ex-service men and others entered those holdings only to meet with difficulties which were almost unsurmountable. Although the Land Court has in many cases revised the rentals, the fact remains that in a great many instances even to this day a great struggle is taking place among those smallholders in order to maintain the holdings which they occupy.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland had a great many interviews which showed that he really had an ardent desire to get at the bottom of the whole situation. I asked him in the course of his statement where those interviews took place. I am naturally very much interested in the northern part of Scotland, like a good many of my colleagues, and I understand the interviews were with men who were more situated south of the Forth and near large market towns and who had been in occupation of holdings for some time. They could give my right hon. Friend information as to how they were able to make ends meet or otherwise, and the information which he received satisfied him that it was worth while attempting this great new movement to bring the population back to the land once again. I think that he is right in making this attempt. He lays down the condition
that the holdings should be small in size, from five to nine acres, and that they should be as near as possible to market towns. From that I gather that it is not a question of a holding for sheep or cattle or anything of that kind, but rather one in the nature of a glorified market gardening scheme. One knows from one's personal experience that schemes of that kind have been successful in England, and I cannot see, given good conditions, why the same schemes should not be successful in Scotland. The question of cost has made me a bit anxious, and as we are dealing with the whole of this problem on the spur of the moment, and as I had not heard the details before, I have to feel my feet. I gather from my right hon. Friend that the Government, who will be the landlords, do not expect to make any money out of this proposal.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Three per cent.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: I understood from my right hon. Friend that the Government did not expect to make both ends meet out of this undertaking. They are prepared, as I understand it, to submit a Supplementary Estimate to meet it.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: It is a very important point. I am going by the White Paper. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is correct when he says that the Secretary of State for Scotland rather indicated that they would not make ends meet, yet there is paragraph 8 of the White Paper which says that
the rents obtainable will approximate to a return of 3 per cent. on the initial capital expended.

Sir G. COLLINS: Perhaps I may help to explain the point to the right hon. Gentleman. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there is what is called in Scotland a Land Settlement Fund. Into that fund, if this Measure becomes law, will be paid for three years a sum not exceeding £250,000 for land settlement purposes. There will be no Supplementary Estimate, but instead of the £100,000 going into the fund this year to be used for buying land and for erecting the necessary houses and steadings and creating the holdings, there will be a sum of £250,000 in the next three years. That, I think, explains the situation, and now I come to the point about the 3 per cent. The rents which we propose to charge—and I regard this as very important, and
it is the point which was raised by the, Noble Lord—on the average represent a return of about 3 per cent. on the total cost of each holding. In some cases there may be 40 holdings in a settlement and in each of these holdings there will be a slight difference in rent according to the lie of the land and the size of the house, etc., but it is our intention to fix rents which we believe can be paid. Whether they can be paid over a period of years or not, only time can show; but the rents we are proposing to charge will be about 3 per cent. on the capital cost of each holding.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: I am grateful to the Secretary of State for his explanation. He made some reference to the funds which are at present available for land settlement. I understand that no funds which are now available under any of the existing Acts will be interfered with.

Sir G. COLLINS: Instead of the £100,000 which is now available for the purposes of land settlement throughout the whole of Scotland, the fund will be one not exceeding £250,000, and we propose to use the increase mainly for the constitution of holdings as specified in paragraph 4 of the White Paper.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: That makes the position rather difficult for those who represent small landholders in the North of Scotland. As I understand the situation is this. In the last Estimates £100,000 was allocated for smallholdings, it was earmarked for land settlements as we know it under the 1911 Act. Now I understand that a new situation will arise.

Sir G. COLLINS: I do not want to be misunderstood, and I am anxious to give the Committee all the information I can. This year there was £100,000, and it was utilised for land settlement all over Scotland in the Lowlands as well as the Highlands, mainly in the Lowlands. It is our intention to continue land settlement in the Highlands, but the larger provision of money provided by this Estimate is frankly for the type of holding indicated in paragraph 4.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: Are we to understand that the major part of the £250,000, which is to be allocated for three consecutive years, is to be devoted to the purposes of this new scheme? In that case the amount which will be avail-
able for the whole of smallholding schemes under the Act of 1911 and the Act of 1919 may not be enough. I am putting it at the worst, and it is a point well worthy of consideration. I must put the point of view which affects land holdings in the northern part of Scotland, though, indeed, it affects the southern part as well. I hope that the scheme will be successful, and that some Government in the future will be able to devote much more than £250,000 a year towards a much bigger and larger scheme. It is clear that the landholders who will be created by this Bill will be the tenants of the Government. I want to know what system of tenure they are to be under; whether they are going to have security of tenure, fair rents, and compensation for improvements? Are we going to have a retrogressive step in land legislation in Scotland or a step in advance? It is a new situation to have the Government as landowners in such a wide and far reaching scheme. Is the new tenant of the Government to hold as a crofter with security of tenure and pay rent, or is he to hold as a statutory leasehold tenant? These are points of great importance, which affect my mind deeply and which will affect the mind of every man who is interested in land settlement in Scotland.
I agree with the Noble Lord the Member for Perth (Lord Scone) who has a great knowledge about these problems. He is frightened lest the holding of five acres at a rent of £18 or £19 may not be a profitable investment. We shall have to face the proposition. The Government, I understand, are facing it. I understand that my right hon. Friend has analysed and scrutinised it, and that he and his advisers have come to the conclusion that that is a fair and reasonable rent. I believe it is possible to make five acres of land pay provided you get the conditions, provided it is well equipped for market gardening, is good land and that you are careful where you fix your settlement. I understand these are to be settlements of 40 or 50 tenants, clustered together in places like Rutherglen and Hamilton, and that there may be a differentiation in rent according to the nature of the conditions. The rent is never to be less than a 3 per cent. return, it may be more, but in a settlement of 40 or 50 settlers you are bound to have a great deal of differentiation because of the nature of the land, the nature of the
roads and the water supply; all conflicting elements when you are fixing rent in these various holdings. There is going to be difficulty there. I understand that the holdings are to be equipped before they are entered, an important matter, and that no one will be asked to go into a holding until it is equipped. That is satisfactory. A great deal of the difficulty in regard to land settlement in the past has been that the man to be settled on the land never saw a house for months after he had taken the land.
There is a great deal to be said for this proposal from a business point of view. If you get the right type of man suitable for these settlements, hard working, strong and, if possible, bred upon the land, I think that a holding of five acres, utilised as market gardens, will be successful, but, on the other hand, there may be difficulties. Much depends on the man. What is more, much depends on his wife, and much also depends upon the equipment of the holding and the nature and quality of the land. These are all-important considerations. Another point was mentioned by the hon. Member for St. Rollox. I think I am right in surmising that what he meant to say was that he hoped there would be some sort of co-operative basis for these schemes. Supposing there is a settlement of 40 or 50 settlers outside a town, it is very important, if they are all dealing with eggs or poultry or anything of that kind, that there should be some co-operation between them so that they can market their commodities to the best advantage and so that they may not be "done" by either wholesalers or retailers in the big cities.
These are important points in connection with schemes of this kind. As I say, I heard of these various proposals for the first time to-night. I have endeavoured casually and without giving much thought to the details, to indicate some of the problems which suggest themselves to me. I hope I have dealt with a good many of the points which are likely to affect my colleagues in this Committee in their consideration of the schemes. I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has broken out again to-day into a new attempt to regenerate and re-colonise Scotland. I heartily wish him all success. I hope that if the conditions which I have en-
deavoured to emphasise are carefully considered, this bold attempt to stop depopulation and create a happy and contented rural Scotland will have results which will redound to his credit.

8.58 p.m.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I, too, am glad that the Government are taking this first step towards a scheme of land settlement in Scotland but, frankly, I can hardly agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir I. Macpherson) that it is likely to stop depopulation or regenerate Scotland. In fact this proposal only means an increase from £175,000 to £250,000 in the amount normally available for land settlement in Scotland but certainly it is a step in the right direction. I listened with pleasure when the Secretary of State described with engaging frankness his conversion to the policy of land settlement, a conversion which appeared to me to be more reasonably inspired than some of the other sudden economic conversions which have enlivened our political life in recent years. I share strongly the misgivings which my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty has expressed about certain features of the schemes and I also have some questions to put to the Secretary of State.
First, we should all like to know what is to be the nature of the schemes and who are to be the holders. The Noble Lord the Member for Perth and Kinross (Lord Scone) wondered if they were all to be people without experience. I hope not, but I would support the right hon. Gentleman in drawing to a certain extent upon men who have had no actual experience on the land. Many men of that class have done extraordinarily well up to the present. There are instances of which I think he knows in his own Department, of cabinet makers, tailors and people in all kinds of urban occupations, who have done exceedingly well in smallholdings, particularly those well situated in the vicinity of towns. A large class of holders without previous agricultural experience who have done very well since the War are the poultry farmers at whom everybody laughed at first—people like ex-officers who came out of the Army and
went in for poultry farming. As a matter of fact these men applied fresh minds to the problems of poultry farming and they quickly outstripped the old orthodox ideas and the old-fashioned methods. Therefore I welcome the fact that an opportunity is to be given to a certain number of men without previous agricultural experience to get holdings in the vicinity of towns.
At the same time I join with the Noble Lord in saying that we expect the first chance to be given to the thousands of well-qualified applicants who are, as yet, unsatisfied. The experience of the men is a very important factor to be taken into account. The right hon. Gentleman said that schemes for the settlement in the vicinity of towns of men who had been employed in other industries had been successful in England. They have also been successful on a considerable scale in Scotland. The settlements which the right hon. Gentleman has been visiting near Edinburgh and Glasgow have been in operation for a number of years and have been very successful. They have been of practical help in dealing with the problem of unemployment. But the 5,000 unsatisfied applicants in the rural areas of Scotland must be satisfied. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there will be from all quarters of the House of Commons the strongest protest if these men are not given a fair chance of getting holdings under this scheme. Particularly strong is the land hunger in the Highlands, and the right hon. Gentleman must not lose sight of the need which exists to provide for enlargements and new holdings in the Highlands. It is seldom that a good opportunity arises for getting a suitable farm for land settlement without having to pay enormous compensation. Very often sheep farms are held under long leases, and when a lease is coming to an end the Department must be ready to act. The Department must reserve sufficient funds to enable them to take advantage of any opportunities which may arise of acquiring farms for land settlement in the Highlands and other rural areas.
We are told in the White Paper that these holdings are to range from five to nine acres. I have no knowledge other than such knowledge as is available to all Members, of the plans of the right hon. Gentleman, but rumours have reached me
—and other Members have spoken to me about them—to the effect that a great many of these holdings are to be devoted to poultry. That some should be so devoted is a reasonable proposition, but I cannot help entering a caveat against giving too rapid a stimulus to poultry production. These holdings will be created out of farms which have recently been carrying crops and stocks. Buildings will have to be erected, and if there is a rapid expansion of the poultry industry and the price of eggs falls quickly and suddenly what is going to happen to these holdings? If they are too small for anything but poultry they will be thrown back on the State. Poultry fanning is on the increase in Scotland. It is important in Orkney and Shetland, it is spreading to Caithness, and I have no doubt to Ross and Cromarty and to other parts of the country, and many a farmer in Scotland expects to buy his groceries out of the sale of the eggs laid by the hens which pick up the scraps round the steading. Do not let all this be smashed by a sudden and hasty stimulus given to an industry which, important as it is, is none too broadly based.
I come to another important point in considering this scheme, and that is the cost. The right hon. Gentleman gave figures to show that the costs had been gradually reduced in recent years. I have been putting questions to the right hon. Gentleman on this point and I have been disappointed, having regard to the fall in prices and interest rates, that the costs have not fallen more. No doubt we shall have further opportunities of pursuing that subject. I have not brought those questions with me, but I will have them with me on another occasion when we can go into the subject in greater detail. I have been disappointed that the costs have not been more reduced. Some remarkable figures were given in the Nairne Committee's Report and there are some questions which I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to answer when we are discussing this question on some future occasion. Why does the equipment of a holding of 111 acres in the crofting counties cost £153 while a holding of half the size in another county costs actually £468? Why is it that between 1922 and 1927 a crofting holding of 144 acres cost £431 while a holding in another county of only 20 acres costs £636. These are some of the questions
which it will be very important for us to go into on the Committee stage of the Bill. We must thrash out this question of costs and ascertain why they are generally enormously higher outside the crofting counties than inside.
Meanwhile, I am particularly interested in paragraph 5 of the White Paper in which it is said that in conformity with the recommendation of the Committee on Land Settlement in Scotland, 1927—which I presume means the Nairne Committee, which reported in 1928—it is proposed to let such holdings on leases governed by the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Acts. I am sorry that the Government have accepted the Report of the Nairne Committee on that point for it was the only large recommendation of that Committee which was not unanimous. There were four members of that Committee. One was a distinguished banker. Another was a distinguished large farmer whose services to scientific farming have been numerous and valuable. The third was the extraordinarily able Secretary of the Scottish Farm Servants' Union, Mr. Joseph Duncan. The fourth was Mr. Norman Reid. Mr. Reid has spent his whole life in farming and practised farming on a great scale; and he has spent years of his life in this work of land settlement on the Land Court. It was he, with all that experience behind him, specific experience on the question which this Committee was examining which was greater than that of any other member of the Committee, who dissented from this finding of the Committee which the Government have adopted.
I would venture to draw the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir I. Macpherson) to this point because it was one he raised in his speech, and I agree with him that it is very important. He with his great experience in these matters knows how important it is. Under this scheme the tenants will come under the Agricultural Holdings Act for compensation and not under the Land Acts. They will have, therefore, much less incentive to improve their holdings than they would have under the Land Acts. The improvement of holdings will be thrown back on the State. Surely the majority of the House want to encourage a man to do his best to improve his holding and,
having done that, to get full compensation for all the work, energy and brains which he has put into the development of his holding. Therefore, I say that the Land Court ought not merely to be left with their supervision over these schemes of land settlement which they have at the present time, not only ought they to be left to settle questions of compensation, but, in addition, they ought to be brought in to value the holdings at the beginning of the tenancy. That ought not to be left as it is at present to the Department of Agriculture.
Every hon. Member who has knowledge of land settlement in Scotland knows that great difficulties have been experienced because of the high price at which these improvements have been valued to the men when they go in, and, particularly at this time of falling prices, the small value which is put upon these holdings when they leave. The Department of Agriculture has, I am glad to say, recognised that fact in recent years. Even now I know their officials are in Caithness on one of the schemes they have recently inaugurated attending to that very point and bringing down the valuation which the new holder will be asked to accept for the holding and bringing it down to a figure below the cost of the equipment and fairer to the holder. That ought not to be done by the official of the Department. It ought to be done by an independent authority, in short, by the Land Court. This provision seems to be particularly ominous in the light of paragraph 8 of the White Paper, in which we are told that the rents are to show a return to the State of 3 per cent.
I submit to my right hon. Friend that in the face of the facts which the Committee described this is a retrogressive step. We are withdrawing these new holders from the jurisdiction of the Land Court and placing them directly under the Department of Agriculture, and then asking them to show a return not on their own investment—they have got to get that in addition—but to show a return to the landlord on the capital equipment of 3 per cent. It is an absolutely new idea in land settlement in Scotland that the tenant should be asked to return an economic rent. This is an all-in rent. They have to pay for
the house and the land, for the equipment and for management, and 3 per cent. to the Treasury. A good many landlords in Scotland would be glad to get anything like 3 per cent. from their holdings. What landlords are now drawing 3 per cent. on an investment in agricultural property in Scotland? It is contrary to the whole conception of the Land Acts and at variance with the facts of agriculture as we know them at the present time.
Above all, what is going to happen in the Highlands? Is this system to be applied to the Highlands? Is the right hon. Gentleman going to embark on land settlement in the Highlands, and intending to get 3 per cent.? I cannot believe it possible. I hope he will give me a reply which will indicate, firstly, that he is determined to let no opportunity slip of meeting the land hunger which exists in the Highlands by getting good farms for land settlement there, and, secondly, that there will be no attempt to put the Highland holders on the basis of an economic rent. I am not yet convinced about the soundness of this scheme. There may well be a rush on the part of a great many people to take advantage of it, a rush out of the slums and out of unemployment, with the egg market looking fairly good at the moment as compared with other branches of agriculture. I am sure that the men will never be able to pay economic rents, and then either the new holders will be let down or the Government will come again to the House to ask for another subsidy, as in the case of the milk scheme, in order to "redd up the mess."
Men attach importance to their rights under the Land Acts. The Department of Agriculture has eight holdings in Caithness which will fall vacant at Whit-sun. In the advertisement in the local papers it states, "Rents to be fixed by the Scottish Land Court." We ought not to take advantage of these new and inexperienced holders. We, too, ought to say "rents to be fixed by the Land Court." Does the acceptance of the Nairne Report also mean the abandonment of scheduling under the Acts of 1911 and 1919? The right hon. Gentleman seemed to indicate, I thought, in answer to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty that scheduling was no
longer resorted to, but that it was all to be done by purchase, that we are to have no more scheduling of land in private occupation in order to make small holdings. I am not at all unfriendly to purchase. I see opposite the hon. Member for East Fife (Mr. H. Stewart). He and I have fought battles over the system of purchase, but, at the same time, he will agree with me that there are great advantages in certain cases, and especially in the Highlands, in the maintenance of scheduling. For one thing, the great advantage of scheduling over land purchase is that it is much cheaper, you can do more with your money.
Let me give this Committee some facts and figures from the Nairne Committee's Report, on which the Government are acting. Between 1918 and 1922 the average cost of a holding of 237 acres owned by the Department in a crofting county was £519, but the average cost of a holding of 106 acres not owned by the. Department was only £150. The average cost of a holding of 34 acres owned by the Department in a non-crofting county was £1,105, but the average cost of a holding of 24 acres not owned by the Department was only £48. In the years 1922 to 1927 the average cost of a holding of 144 acres owned by the Department in a crofting county, that is on land purchased by the Department, was £431, but the average cost of a holding of 141 acres in a crofting county on land not owned by the Department, that is to say, land which had been scheduled for land settlement on a private estate, was only £198. Therefore, I would say to the right hon. Gentleman, "Do not abandon this strong weapon; if you do it will put a burden of extra expense on the holders, and to expect them to earn not only a livelihood for themselves but a profit of 3 per cent. on the Government's investment would be quite out of the question."
These are the warnings and the criticisms which I feel bound to offer, and the questions which I feel bound to ask, but I will preserve a hopeful and open mind while waiting for the right hon. Gentleman's reply. This is a beginning, but it is nothing like enough, as the right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty said. I would beg the right hon. Gentleman not to leave this question of land settlement to the next Parliament. There
is need to advance now, on the basis of smaller holdings but holdings mainly larger than the ones the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. The family farm is going to be the keystone of the agricultural structure in future years. It is on those lines only that we can get the economic structure of agriculture down to economic rock bottom. We shall need a big, bold programme in order to satisfy the land hunger of the Highlands, the need of increasing the rural population, and restoring the population of the Highlands.
Meanwhile, we are to-night offered £250,000. That is, it is true, only £75,000 more than the normal. Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman said, we are far below normal now. When the Government came into office in 1931 we found a standstill order by the Treasury stopping all land settlement, and though we got going a bit in the following year there was a lag on that account. Actually the sum voted last year was only £100,000, £25,000 less than we got in the height of the crisis, but still the normal Vote is £175,000, and the present sum is only £75,000 more than the Vote in a normal year, though I quite agree that there is a great advantage in having that sum stabilised for three years in the interests of the efficiency and economy of land settlement.
I have two other questions to put to the right hon. Gentleman. How many holdings does he estimate will be formed? I estimate about 300. I would like to know what he thinks will be the yearly output of holdings under this scheme. Further, will the £25,000 which under the late scheme was earmarked out of the Agriculture Fund for housing for the land holders and cotters, be still available for this purpose in the future? We now have £250,000 offered and I for one am not going to refuse it, and if anyone challenges the Vote I shall go into the Lobby in support of it.

9.24 p.m.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR-WEDDERBURN: When the Scottish Office Vote was discussed on Report in July last I ventured to express the hope that before very long the Secretary of State would be able to present us with a programme of land settlement considerably larger than that which was provided for in that Estimate, and, while the proposal now before us
does not seem likely to be quite so extensive as some of us might have wished, I welcome it as a very substantial advance in the right direction. The first criticism which has been brought forward to-night is concerned with the rents which are likely to be charged. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir I. Macpherson) has pointed out that rents of £5 an acre on a five-acre holding, even if that holding is intensively cultivated, is a very high rent per acre, and my Noble Friend the Member for Perth (Lord Scone) also spoke in the same sense. I think perhaps the Committee ought to be reminded that this rent includes the rent for the house. I do not know whether my right hon. Friend has inspected the models in the Scottish Office of those houses which are being provided under this scheme of land settlement. If he has done so, I think he will agree that those dwellings are of such a type that if they had been provided in any urban housing scheme they would have been worth 15s. a week, and certainly not less than 10s. a week, so that the remainder which is applicable to the land alone would represent, according to the strictest computation, a very small proportion of the annual produce of the soil.
The right hon. Baronet the Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair) spoke as if the Scottish Office were going to act as Shylocks in extracting their 3 per cent., and no less, from the unfortunate holder. That is not as I interpret this estimate. I think that it is merely an estimate of what is likely to be obtained. As the right hon. Baronet is aware, although the initial rent is fixed when the tenant enters into his holding, it can be reviewed, and must be reviewed, at the and of the lease, and the arbiter in that [...]t will be the Land Court, as he desires. At the end of the seven years' lease, if the tenant desires an alteration to be made in the rent, he may appeal—

Sir A. SINCLAIR: That is a very important point. The hon. Member may have information which is not at my disposal. I am going only by paragraph 5 of the White Paper.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR-WEDDERBURN: If the right hon. Baronet will read Section 34 of the Small Landholders and Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act of 1931 he will see that it reads:
Any question of difference between the landlord and the tenant of a holding which, under the principal Act or this Act, or under the lease is referred to arbitration may, if the landlord and the tenant so agree, in lieu of being determined in pursuance of Sub-section (1) of Section 15 of the principal Act, be determined by the Land Court, and the Land Court shall on the joint application of the landlord and the tenant determine such question or difference accordingly.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Yes, if the landlord and the tenant agree. But the tenant has no right—

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR-WEDDERBURN: In this case, the landlord is the Board of Agriculture.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: There is a great difference between a tenant having the right to go to the Land Court and his having an assurance from the hon. Member for West Renfrew (Mr. Scrymgeour-Wedderburn) that it is the intention of the Board of Agriculture to accord that right to him.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR-WEDDERBURN: The Land Court may be used under existing legislation, and I take it the right hon. Baronet's point is that if they were given a different sort of tenure they would in any case appeal to the Land Court and that the Land Court would be more likely to be more favourable to them. If that is the point, the question is one of fact, whether it is the intention of the Board to use the method of appeal to the Land Court for adjudging rents in future. The other point brought forward by the right hon. Baronet, which he concentrated on mostly, was that of compensation, and I think it would be fair to say that his principal criticism was that under this scheme ordinary agricultural tenure would be preferred to landholder's tenure. I hope very much that the Secretary of State will adhere to his present practice of preferring agricultural tenure. It has been mentioned in this Debate how much more economical it is to have a holding already equipped before the tenant goes in, and under the system of landholder's tenure I do not think he would be able to do this, because you would have to have the consent of the holder. If you can have, let us say, 20 or 30 steadings, all of the same type, all built at the same time, and by a single contractor, that is obviously far more economical than a system under which
each building would have to be separately designed and separately erected.
We come to the point of compensation. With great respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I submit to the Committee that the position of the smallholder under agricultural tenure will be decidedly more advantageous in respect of compensation than his position under the landholder's tenure which the right hon. Baronet favours. I think that the original definition of the rights of compensation under landholder's tenure are to be found in the Act of 1886, a provision that has been Continued in the Acts of 1910, 1919, 1931 and so on. That provides that:
If any crofter"—
and the word "crofter" is now applied to the landholder—
If any crofter renounces his tenancy or is removed from his holding, he shall be entitled to compensation for any permanent improvements provided the improvements are suitable to the holding.
It is provided under Section 10 that:
Improvements shall be valued under this Act at such sum as fairly represents the value of the improvements to the incoming tenant.
In order to get compensation he has to prove that the improvements are suitable to the holding, and he has to show that they represent a certain value to the incoming tenant. Now under agricultural tenure the consent of the landlord—that is, in this case, the Board of Agriculture—has to be obtained. Under landholder's tenure, the tenant makes improvements and does not know whether they will be ultimately adjudged by the Land Court to be suitable to the holding or to be of any value to the incoming tenant. Under agricultural tenure he knows exactly where he is, since the Board, as owner, is bound to pay full value for the improvements to which it has consented. The right hon. Baronet referred to the report of the Committee on Land Settlement in Scotland, and I should like to refer him to one paragraph of that report. It is on page 33, paragraph 58:
Another condition of landholder's tenure which puzzles and annoys many of the holders is that the entire obligation for the maintenance in good repair of the buildings is placed on their shoulders instead of being shared, as in ordinary tenancies, with the landlord. There is also uncertainty as to the amount to which the holder might be found to be entitled at outgo in respect of the value of the buildings, etc., on the holding. This amount,
as stated above, is to be fixed, failing agreement between holder and landlord, by the Land Court, at such sum as represents their value to an incoming tenant. It is quite possible that buildings erected and paid for by the holder with borrowed money at a cost of, say, £500, might be valued on these conditions at his outgo at £400, the difference between these two amounts representing loss to the holder, and possibly to the Board if they are not able to recover any balance of loan still due to them by the holder.
The hon. Baronet is, of course, aware that this report emphasises all through the defects and the unfamiliarity caused by the system of landholder's tenure, which may not seem unsuitable to the caterans of Caithness, but which is not so indigenous to the Lowlands of Scotland. The policy of land settlement commends itself to many hon. Members in this House, but it is regarded in many parts of the Lowlands of Scotland with some suspicion and distrust, largely by reason of the exceedingly expensive experiments immediately following the 1919 Act. Some of those experiments were very costly indeed to the taxpayers without producing any very obvious benefits to the agricultural community as a whole. If we are to hope, as I certainly do, for a large extension of this policy in the future we must enable the Board of Agriculture to present us with accounts which will not involve an undue and excessive burden upon the taxpayer.
We must give the board freedom to select that type of tenure which will be most economical and most popular among the inhabitants of those industrial districts whom we desire to settle upon the land. While inclined to regret that this grant from the Treasury is restricted to its present amount for a period of three years, I am satisfied that the present methods of the Secretary of State for Scotland in administering this modest expenditure, of which we are now asked to approve, will justify its augmentation before that period has come to an end.

9.37 p.m.

Captain RAMSAY: The House has discussed at fairly great length the pros and cons of the new scheme which has been set on foot since last October. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) alternated between moods of optimism and pessimism, and I found it difficult to follow him in those moods or to make up my
mind upon which of those moods he seemed to rest. He says that it was pessimism. I am glad to say that I cannot agree with him in that mood. This question of land settlement entered an entirely new phase when the Secretary of State for Scotland took the departure which he did last October. There is no one in this country who, in theory, is not in favour of putting as many decent citizens as possible in touch with the land. We all regret that the circumstances of our time and generation have divorced too many of our countrymen from their native soil, and from all those influences which the soil can bring, let alone the health and sanity which it can confer upon man's mind and body.
I welcome this scheme for two main reasons. The first is that it completes the picture of our system of putting men back again into touch with the land. There are the small allotments which a man can work in his spare time for an hour or two, and then the scheme, which the right hon. Gentleman has been pursuing in Scotland for some time, of larger plots of about one and a-half acres or two acres, on which men are mainly employed, but which is of a temporary character. The land is held under lease of, say, five years, which period is capable of being increased. It is not intended for men with any capital resources at their disposal. I am happy to feel that the scheme will be a real benefit for those for whom it is devised.
The third aspect of the case will, I think, complete the picture; that is the question of how you are to put in touch with the land the man who has a little capital and a little qualification. I understand that it is a mixture of the two which will be taken into account by the body which will decide upon his eligibility. That man is unable to start on his own, because he is not big enough; he falls between two stools, but he is to be enabled to start on better terms than any man in that position has been able to start before. That brings me to the second reason why I support this scheme. I do not think that anyone, after looking into the circumstances of the scheme, can fail to come to the conclusion that, on the whole, men will be decidedly better off under it than they were under the old system of landholder's tenure.
If the House will bear with me, I will give one or two main reasons, and the fundamental facts, why a man will be better off. The question of rent has been discussed. The rent under landholder's tenure was frequently that a man paid rent for the land, and, having had to borrow money to put up buildings, he paid another sum annually for them. He was in the irritating position of having two sums outgoing each year, and that can be regarded as a system of two rents, one for the buildings and the other for the land. There is a risk of putting up buildings that might not be very suitable, and time is wasted in putting them up. The tenure of land could be revised in periods of seven years. Provided that the land did not deteriorate or that it did not fall too seriously into arrear, you were sure of your tenure.
Under the new system, a man will be equally sure of his tenure if he fulfils the conditions. He will have the advantage of viewing the property to start with, and of being able to make up his mind whether the rent which he is to be asked to pay will be satisfactory, considering all the things which he will get for it. One of my hon. Friends made the point that in many urban districts such a rent for the house alone would be considered fairly cheap, and the Noble Lord who spoke said that that affected the town dweller, who had his rent assured to him. I think that the Noble Lord is unduly anxious if he thinks that a man with all the advantages in using the land, with its possibility for cultivation, will not be able to make a return on his money. I prefer to trust the judgment of the Secretary of State for Scotland, and of those who advise him, when the right hon. Gentleman told us that we may reasonably expect something in the nature of 3 per cent. I am prepared to take the gamble.
Another primary consideration is compensation. My hon. Friend has dealt with that and I should like to strengthen what he said. As far as I can understand the scheme, I believe that a man under it is in a very much better position as regards compensation, because he is able in the first place to have the assistance of the Department's surveyors in planning any buildings that may be necessary, over and above those that he receives. He is to receive many of the buildings which under the old system he
would not have received, and which he would have to have put up himself, and if he should find it necessary to put up additional buildings he will get the advice of the Department's surveyors. If the Department's surveyors have passed the works it is certain that the Department will accept them at a reason able valuation. Therefore, he has, in the first place, advice, and in the second place he is certain of getting his money back. I submit that no Scotsman, however liberally minded, would easily forgo such a very solid cash consideration.
The third essential that a man wants to know when he is going into a land venture of this kind is security. Here, again, I say that the security of tenure under this scheme is greater than the security under the old scheme, and for this reason: the terms of the rent and the period of the rent, seven years, are the same, but there is this essential difference that the landlord in this case is the State, which at great expense is putting the man on the land, whereas in the old case it may have been that the landlord was very anxious to get rid of the man. You do not mean to tell me that the State which goes to great expense in putting a man on the land is going to put him off the land. Satan divided against himself cannot stand, and we cannot accuse the right hon. Gentleman of being even more Machiavellian than he.

Sir M. WOOD: Why should they not remove him?

Captain RAMSAY: Will the hon. and gallant Member finance any scheme and then, because he has had a bad dream, turn round and throw his money into the ditch?

Sir M. WOOD: You can put out the first tenant and put in another.

Captain RAMSAY: If the State have paid to put a tenant in and that tenant is suitable and working his land well, does the hon. and gallant Member mean to suggest that the State is going to pay that man compensation for putting him out and putting another man in? I do not believe it. I am prepared to leave it at that. If the man is a suitable tenant he has better security under this scheme than he had before, because the
man who has put him in and financed him is not going to be the same man to put him out. If he is an unsuitable tenant it will be much easier and much less expensive to everybody concerned to get rid of him, and a good job too. In the old days when you had a man who was a round peg in a square hole, there was a great deal of trouble in getting rid of him. The land was the worse and his neighbours were the worse for his presence, and nearly everybody was landed in expense in getting rid of him. Under this scheme we shall get rid of such a person much more cheaply. If there should be border line cases there is the right of appeal to the Land Court, which remains as the ultimate court of appeal. Therefore, on the three fundamental points, the good tenants are going to be better off and the unsuitable tenants are going to be got rid of.
I should like to make one suggestion to my right hon. Friend, and I hope he will not regard it as detracting from the warmth of my praise and admiration for his courage in making this new departure. I should like him if it were possible to carry some future scheme one step further. I should like to see the man who has made good and stayed on his land for some time in the position to come to the Department and say: "I am prepared to pay you an increased rent, which shall represent a hire purchase rent, and by the time I have paid the rent for 10 or 15 years I shall become the owner of the place, lock, stock and barrel." I understand that the extra instalment would have to include the proportionate cost of roads, water and light and, of course, he would have to undertake the whole cost of his own fencing. That cost could not be transferred to the community. I do not agree with the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair), that my right hon. Friend has made too small a beginning. I think this matter is being pursued as prudently and as cautiously as the circumstances and the information at our disposal permits. I am sure that there are people all over Scotland who will congratulate the right hon. Gentleman when they read his speech, and that there are people in England who will probably want to follow suit before very long.

9.56 p.m.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I welcome the Bill just as I would welcome the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table. A deputation came from my constituency to the Secretary of State for Scotland pleading with him to get something like this done. I have a great number of men in my constituency who have plots, and they are very anxious that the Secretary of State for Scotland should give them smallholdings. Whether 20 or 30 men from my constituency will be among the number that will be fortunate enough from their point of view but not from mine in getting these smallholdings, I do not know, but I know what it is to work a smallholding. I am in favour of smallholdings if properly organised, but unless they are properly organised, co-operatively organised, they will be a failure. No one can run them successfully unless they have been born and bred on the soil. A great many things have to be taken into consideration.
Some 133 smallholdings in Scotland have been given up. Why were they given up? The right hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir I. Macpherson) had some difficulty in explaining why they were given up. There were two reasons why they were given up. The principal reason was because the tenants could not make a living on them. The other reason was that in taking men from our big industrial centres and placing them in the country it was a revolution in their lives. It is no use telling me what the pioneers did when they went to Canada and Australia. They were exceptional men who succeeded. When you take men from the industrial centres you do not take them away entirely, but they are just near enough so that in a year or so they begin to wish to be back. They feel that they are wallowing in the mire, and I want the Government to face the facts. These miners or artisans who come from the industrial centres and go on farms have been used to an entirely different kind of life; they have been used to stopping work at five or six o'clock in the evening, and starting at seven or eight in the morning, doing a regular day's work and stopping at a regular hour, not working all the hours that God sends. You can hear from a dozen parts of the House that it is not only the man who is expected to work these small-
holdings but his wife, and it must not be forgotten it was said here by the Secretary of State for Scotland that they would get the huge salary of £2 10s. a week. You can take it from me that clay workers will want more than £2 10s. a week.

Sir G. COLLINS: The hon. Member should bear in mind that they have their rent, rates, and taxes paid, and receive £2 10s. a week plus the produce from the soil.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I understand that, but it is £2 10s. a week for the wife's work as well, and remember that the most successful cases in and around Glasgow are not cases of man and wife, but man, wife and family, and that is the amount to be given. We have got to face here a new issue; the like never happened before. We are discussing at the moment doing away with all overtime on the Clyde, we are talking in all sincerity about a 40-hour week, and getting employers of labour even to discuss the possibility of accepting a 40-hour week without any reduction in wages. Yet here you have the suggestion of a 70-and 80-hour week on this miserable pittance. We have got to face facts, and these are the facts. To those who like that kind of work, I agree readily there cannot be a better occupation. It is a healthy occupation and a natural one. The vast majority of my fellows are employed at unnatural occupations. Men and women who have been brought up in the country, or are only one generation removed from the soil, may find this all right, but I want to assure them that it means plenty of hard work, plenty of anxiety and working in many instances night and day, Sunday and Saturday. You are dealing here with livestock. Innumerable things can happen. One of the things held out as an inducement to the artisans to leave the town and go to this kind of life is that they will be freed from the boss, free "o' the gaffer." They will not have anybody superintending them. They can take it from me that they will have the most critical and the most exacting boss demanding attention from them—livestock. If they do not attend to them regularly, every day and every hour, they will soon let them know. They will be surprised. Under a proper dispensation this would be all right, if
it were attacked in a proper manner, as this Government could attack it.
We have it on the authority of no less a personage than the right hon. and gallant Member for Caithness (Sir A. Sinclair), the last Secretary of State for Scotland, who calculated the amount of money which it is now proposed to spend, that there are going to be 300 farms. Here we have hundreds and thousands of unemployed, and it will not touch the fringe of our problem. From the point of view of helping the unemployed situation, it is futile. If it is with a view to supplying ourselves with foodstuffs produced in our native land, how futile are 300 farms. We have thousands of acres of the finest land in the world if properly cultivated, and it is not cultivated at all. The right hon. and gallant Member for Caithness talked about the sheep farms,
My Hieland hame mid nature's finest grandeur.
All very fine to visit, but a very different thing to wring a living from the bare soil that is there. There is plenty of soil in, Scotland, plenty of beautiful estates that belong to Members of this House that have lain fallow all my lifetime, beautiful fields that would produce the finest stock that man requires. But they always suggest that we take some place where man will have great difficulty in wringing a bare existence from the soil.
That is not the way Russia has done the job, and that is not the way this country will have to do it. If this Government does not do it, some other Government will, unless we are going to allow "a bold peasantry" to be destroyed, for it is as true to-day as when the lines were penned that that peasantry
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
We have up to now never made any serious attempt to prevent the depopulation of the rural districts of our country. There was an opportunity here, when the Secretary of State put this idea before the Cabinet. But it is a paltry attempt that has been made. Three hundred farms. Then, again, the rent. It cannot be done. They cannot wring that out of it. Eighteen pounds a year or up to £24 a year for rent. We tried it. Enthusiasts worked all the hours under all the trying conditions, climatic and otherwise, and had all the best ad-
vice that the agricultural colleges of Scotland and the Scottish Office could give, and they could not wring £3 a week out of it after spending about £600. That was not away in the wilds of the Highlands. They could not pay a rent of £24 a year and get £2 10s. a week out of it. It was tried with all the will a man could show. It cannot be done under present conditions and under the system of private enterprise and all that that involves. I believe it could be done under a co-operative method of procedure, as in Denmark, not as it is done in Orkney and Shetland where co-operatively they dispose of their produce, but as in Denmark where the Government supplies the stock, which ensures that the individual farmer is supplied with the very best material. Not only that, but the feeding stuffs are also bought by the Government wholesale.
See the position that the small farmer is in at the moment. He has to buy his feeding stuffs and everything else connected with his farm at retail prices, and he has to sell his produce wholesale. That is what the small market farmer is up against to-day. The right hon. Member for Caithness made an awful mistake. He said that the egg market is good at the moment. He could not have been speaking for Caithness nor Aberdeenshire nor for any part of Scotland, because the egg market was never so bad. Prices are lower than they were before the War. Fresh eggs in Dumfriesshire and Aberdeenshire fetch 7d. a dozen. Eight-pence is quite a common price for fresh eggs. The small farmer cannot make a living on those prices. If the Government had been in earnest about this business they would have gone around the country and would have seen where the most suitale land was for market gardening, poultry farming, the growing of vegetables, tomatoes, etc. They would have gone round to see where the best place was, and they should have taken that land. They should have done the same as was done during the War. We took the land in Glasgow and afterwards we discussed the price that we would pay for it. It was an easy matter for us to settle the business once we had taken possession of the land.
We shall not get round this problem until we do that again, until we push self-interest to one side. Again I say that if the present Government do not do it,
if we are to win through some other Government must do it. It must consider the interest of all the people in the country as against the interest of the few. We have always considered the interests of the few up to now. All those who are anxious—there are many anxious to-day—to try to ease the peculiar situation in which statesmen find the country, find that they get up against selfish interests, which up to now have been too strong for them to remove. That is what the Government have found in this case; they have simply touched the fringe of the business.
There is a question that I want to ask, although it has also been asked by the right hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland. It is whether it will be the Scottish Land Courts that will deal with any improvements chat may take place on these smallholdings. That is very important. The advice that I have received from the legal point of view on this question informs me that there is no provision here for that procedure, but these people are going to be denied the rights that were given to the crofters in the Highlands of Scotland. We view that possibility with alarm, because, if that is what is going to take place here, it will eventually take place with the crofters also, and therefore, in self-preservation, the crofters in Scotland are inquiring about this matter. It is very serious to think that such a thing may happen after you have been years in a place, have put your whole self into it, have improved it, and probably have erected buildings such as I have seen erected by men who were not trained tradesmen, but which were very creditable and served their purpose.
The hon. and gallant Member for Peebles (Captain A. Ramsay) tried to explain away this idea. He said that these smallholders were going to have the advantage of the advice of technical experts in the Scottish Office. I am all for technical advice, and for all the advice that the Scottish Office can give in cases such as these, but I have visited crofts all over the Highlands of Scotland, and have seen the buildings which the crofters, with their neighbours, have put up. It is true that they were not artistic, but they served their purpose. There is no doubt that it is only the
type of men and women who can adapt themselves in this way that will be suitable. It will not be everybody that will succeed in this life into which these men are to be transplanted; it will be men and women of grit, and it is that type that we should encourage. From the other side of the House no encouragement is going to be given, but exactly the opposite, because the concessions which have been granted to the crofters are to be denied to these men. I hope that the Secretary of State for Scot-land, or the Under-Secretary, or whoever is going to reply on behalf of the Government, will reply to these points which I have tried to make as clearly as I possibly could, because I do not want to oppose this scheme.
It is, however, a moot point which is the best procedure here. The big bonanza farm is the idea of to-day. Mass production is undoubtedly the order of the day in everything else but agriculture. Everyone is in favour of the most up-to-date machinery and labour-saving except for agriculture. Here you come along, and you want to put as many on the land as you can, and at the same time we are advocating taking as many men out of the workshops as we possibly can by better organisation, better equipment and more up-to-date machinery, but in agriculture we are going to adopt another method of procedure. We are going to put as many back on to the land as we possibly can. That is all wrong. They will have to compete with the great bonanza farms, for instance, with Mr. Ewing in Edinburgh with his quarter of a million hens and his 12 miles of roads—that is in our own country—to say nothing of the great bonanza farms that you have scattered up and down the length and breadth of Britain. So that it is no easy matter. I hope when the Government were considering it they had all these things before them and were prepared to give these men and their wives and families who will be going into those smallholdings every possible encouragement so that, instead of it being a success, the whole thing does not turn out to be a failure.

10.23 p.m.

Sir R. HAMILTON: When we have a scheme of land settlement for Scotland, it is bound to attract very great attention from anyone who is interested in the
future of our country. This scheme attracts more than usual attention, because there are various points of difference from schemes to which we have been accustomed in the past. In the first place, I should like to say how glad I am to see that the stream is running again in the direction of land settlement. It has almost dried up in the last year or two. I wish it was a little wider and deeper still, because surely this is a time such as there never was for furthering schemes of land settlement. Money is cheaper than has ever been known in the history of the country and, unfortunately, there are more men than ever waiting for the opportunity to get on the land. I hope the Government do not intend to limit themselves to a scheme of this nature with £250,000 a year, and possibly the settlement of some 300 holdings. The hon. Member who spoke last very rightly said that 300 holdings is not a thing to be proud of at all. One would like to see 3,000, and then we should be a long way below the mark of what ought to be done.
In the course of the discussion, as far as it has gone, there are three points which have come out markedly. The first is as to what the allocation of the money is going to be between the settlement of the family farm that we have known in the past and the new, what we might call, glorified allotments. It is an entirely different scheme from anything that we have been accustomed to, at any rate in the North of Scotland. My right hon. Friend raised a point on which we ought to have a fairly definite answer. The Secretary of State said that the money would be allocated mainly for the new scheme. Mainly is rather a vague expression, and we ought to know more correctly how much money is to go to the one scheme and how much to the other. It is most imporatnt that those men who have been waiting for many years to get a holding under the old scheme should be given an opportunity to come in and take a smallholding. Those men who have had their names before the Department, and about whom all is known in the Department, and who have been passed as suitable for a holding, should not be left in the lurch because an opening is being made for another class of person in another class of holding.
The next point which stands out, and upon which we desire a good deal more information, is the question of cost. The Secretary of State is very optimistic when he thinks that he will be able to spend this large sum in setting up smallholdings and get 3 per cent. on his money. Frankly, I think it would be better to face what is much more likely to be the effect, namely, that he will mot get anything like that return. It is a great pity to hold out the idea that you can get land settlement with an immediate return of 2, 3, or 4 per cent., or whatever it may be, when we know from the history of land settlement it is not so, but that it is a costly scheme. We look for returns in other ways, in the advantages which land settlement brings to the structure of the nation as a whole, and we do not look to it in the light of a return of 3 or 4 per cent., or whatever it may be. I know that the Secretary of State is a great man for economy and that he would be the last person to hold out false hopes. Therefore, I am looking very keenly to see the grounds on which the statement is based that he definitely hopes to settle these people and to get a return of 3 per cent. on the capital cost. That capital cost, I take it, is to include the cost of purchasing land in the neighbourhood of large towns, which is not a very cheap commodity.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir A. Sinclair) pointed out the very great difference in cost between the scheduling of land and the buying of land. I regret that the Department have not extended the system of scheduling more than they have done. I know that they do not like it, and I know the reason why they do not like it. It costs them a very much larger sum in order to deal with it. When we come to buying land in the neighbourhood of these large towns it will be a serious item in the cost of the whole settlement. I have not seen the plans of the houses it is proposed to put up, but I take it that they will be only in the nature of living houses. There cannot be much required in the nature of steadings on four acres, or, if a man is going to keep bees, he will not want much in the way of a large house, so that the cost there will be limited to the actual living house with some little addition. We should like to know what the intention of the Department is
ultimately going to be. If you are to put up a family farm in the Highlands the cost of the house and the steadings will be a very important matter. When you put a man upon a three- or four-acre holding for poultry or bees, the question of building is a very different one.
The last point which is one of the most important, is the question of tenure. For the first time in the last 50 years there is to be a change in the tenure of small holdings. What is the reason for this change? Has the old tenure failed? Have not the reports of the Department year after year borne witness to the great success of settlements under the old tenure? Have we not seen the whole of the north of Scotland regenerated and rejuvenated by the security of tenure which the Land Holdings Acts have given? The old system of tenure in Scotland brings out the best in the individual. He knows that he has a security of tenure, and will get compensation for improvements. Why are we giving all that up? Is there a public demand for it? Where does the demand come from? When these holdings are equipped the State will be the landlord, and they will deal with the tenancy as an ordinary agricultural holding. It may be a simple matter from the point of view of the Department. That is a bureaucratic point of view, but it is not the point of view upon which land holdings in Scotland have been based.
We are entitled to an answer as to why this change is to be brought about. I was astonished to hear hon. Members opposite say that they would like to be tenants of the Department under this proposal. They sang paeans of praise in its favour, and said that they were prepared to give up their rights under the one system in order to become tenants under the other. If it was put to the ordinary man in Scotland asking for a holding which tenancy he would rather have, one which gave him security of tenure, a land court to revise his rent every seven years, and a right to pay compensation when he went, or a tenancy under which a landlord can tell him to go out, can put up his farm to competitive rent, and where he has no right to compensation, I do not think that he would have much difficulty in making his choice. The forms of the two tenancies are not comparable.

Mr. SCRYMGEOUR-WEDDERBURN: According to the Nairne Report a large number of landholders expressed the greatest dissatisfaction with the system of land tenure in Scotland.

Sir R. HAMILTON: The Nairne Committee recommended that the tenant should have access to the Land Court for rent and compensation; that was the unanimous report of the Committee. I cannot understand why the Government have accepted one part of the report and rejected the other. If there are going to be tenants under this new tenure they must not forget the recommendation that the tenant should have access to the Land Court for rent and compensation. These are points upon which we desire a great deal more information than we have at present. I am glad to see any method, however small, in the direction of increasing settlement on the land. I am glad that the Secretary of State has made a start, and we all hope that he will go on and not rest content with this proposal. The scheme is to continue for three years. Is this all that we are going to get for the next three years? If the Secretary of State remains in his present office for the next three years, or for a longer time, I hope that the success which will attend this scheme, which he has so much at heart, will encourage him to go on to something very much larger.

10.35 p.m.

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: I rise to put another Liberal point of view. I start from precisely the same basis as my hon. Friends opposite but I wish to put another aspect of the case. I took part in preparing the Scottish Liberal land policy and I can perhaps claim to know the basis of that policy as well as hon. Members opposite themselves. The only difference that I can see between us is that, as I look upon the matter, there has been a definite change in the conditions in the country and in the possibilities and character of land settlement during the last two or three years. Five years ago or more we were all agreed that the right thing was the family farm of from 40 to 60 acres, whether sheep farm, stock farm or arable farm. I have always wanted that but I confess that I have been immensely impressed by the argument of the Minister of Agriculture in the last year that while agriculture is so
depressed, and while prices are so low as is the case at present, there is no appreciable percentage of these 5,000 applicants who would take a family farm of that character if it were offered to them. That is the position to-day and I am sorry to find it. I have asked farm servants whose names are on the list and they have told me they would not take such a farm in the present conditions.
That is the new position and, in view of it, is the Secretary of State not right, is he not acting as a realist in turning in the direction of another form of land settlement, that is to say, in the same direction which, as my hon. Friends and I discovered, has been followed in Germany, Belgium, Holland and other countries? In Belgium and Germany they are not creating 50 acre farms. Round about Brussels and Berlin there is a network of small farms such as those which my right hon. Friend is seeking to create. These little farms are not necessarily self-supporting units. There are hundreds, nay thousands of them round Berlin and Brussels from which industrial workers come every morning and to which they return every night. They are of the kind which we used to call "pendicles," part-time holdings which a man can work in his spare time with the help possibly of his wife or his sons. Many of them have glass-houses and facilities for vegetable culture. I suggest that there is a practical line of development at the present moment.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I think that to say there is any difference between us on that point is a complete mistake. On the contrary, I have been responsible for that kind of thing while at the Scottish Office and we are all agreed as to it. What we are concerned about is the tenure and the rights of compensation of these people. We believe that there is room both for this kind of settlement and for the development of family farms.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: I know what is taking place around Brussels and Berlin and to some extent round London, but I want to know whether the hon. Member is advocating a system under which workers who have been engaged in industrial work all day have got to work these holdings—

Mr. STEWART: They have not got to do it.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Is he advocating that when they are tired out working all day they should spend their leisure time working on a farm?

Mr. STEWART: My hon. Friend completely fails to understand the psychology of a man who will accept a farm of that kind. No one would force my hon. Friend to do that kind of thing any more than the Government forced him to do certain things during the War. I have not misunderstood my right hon. Friend. I understood him to complain that this was a provision of only 300 allotments when we wanted a bigger land settlement. My proposition is that it would not be wise to advance a scheme for larger family settlements at this time. I wish this scheme had been for 3,000 holdings instead of 300, but I am prepared to accept 300 as an experiment. It has been a successful experiment in other countries, and I feel, having had for 10 years a close knowledge of this subject both here and abroad, that along those lines the Secretary of State may look for some measure of success.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: There is a scheme operating in distressed areas, particularly for the miners, for allotments up to one acre, and I should like to know what effect the scheme under this Bill will have upon that scheme. Will it make the position more difficult? I want to support the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Sir R. Hamilton) that the applications that have already been made—and there has been a large number in my area—should be considered first when the scheme for smallholdings is put into operation.

10.43 p.m.

Sir G. COLLINS: Let me assure my hon. Friend at once that this scheme will not interfere in any shape or form with the scheme for plots which has been closely associated with him. The difficulty we are experiencing is in securing the necessary land. That is the only difficulty we have met, because we have a large number of applicants for the land if it can be secured. It may be for the convenience of the Committee if I deal with the main points raised in the Debate this evening. If I do not touch on all the subjects which have been raised, I would
remind hon. Members that there will be another opportunity on the Second Beading of the Bill when all the matters which have been discussed this evening can be raised again.
The major points which have been raised by hon. Members are the questions of tenure, rent, co-operation and the class of tenants proposed to be settled on these holdings. As to tenure, I much appreciated the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for West Renfrew (Mr. Scrymgeour-Wedderburn) and of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Peebles (Captain A. Ramsay) on this subject. They spoke with practical knowledge of these matters, and they analysed the objection which had been raised to the proposals in some quarters that under this scheme these holdings will be under the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Acts. We do not propose to alter in any shape or form the character of the tenure so far as the Highlands are concerned. As to the Lowlands, the Committee which sat in 1927 went very fully into that question, and my advisers have considered their recommendations, and if I explain to hon. Members the character of those tenures I hope it may remove any doubts they may have as to the advisability of the course I am pursuing. In the first instance, after the estates are cut up and houses are erected the holdings are offered to different individuals. Every individual who in future takes a holding will know the type of house and the size of holding which he is to get. The rents in the first case will be settled by the Department of Agriculture, and the Minister responsible for the expenditure of the money will be responsible to this House. After seven years the leaseholder will have the right to ask for his rent to be revised by the Land Court or by an arbiter. This will be incorporated in the conditions of the lease.
Now as to improvements. The leaseholder, under the protection of the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Acts, can make all but major improvements either without reference to the landlord or by giving simple notice to the landlord, and at his outgoing he is entitled to compensation for those improvements at their full value to an incoming tenant. The question arises, Who is to determine the
compensation? Either the Land Court or the arbiter, at the express wish of the tenant. It rests with him to decide the character of the tribunal which will decide the value of the improvements. That, I think, answers the main part of the questions on the point of tenure; if there are any others, I will go into them at greater length on Second Reading.
My Noble Friend expressed a doubt, and I quite understand the fears that exist in the minds of hon. Members, as to the rents we propose to charge and as to the ability of the tenants to pay. I can only give the Committee the experience we have gained during the last 12 months with similar holdings in the Lowland districts. We have offered these particular holdings of five to nine acres to potential tenants. There has been no lack of demand; rather, we have been blamed for not being able to supply more holdings at the present prices. I do not wish any hon. Member to think the rent is competitive. I myself, as the Minister of the Crown responsible for the expenditure of this money, have definitely fixed the rents of every one of these holdings, and if hon. Members challenge these rents, as I have no doubt they will during the next year or two, I will try to justify my conduct to this House. While doing that on the one hand, I must at all times remember the interests of the taxpayer when spending public money. I have not only to safeguard the due rights of the tenant, but I have the larger issue of seeing that the Department entrusted with this public money are proper stewards of it. It would be easy for me to fix low rents, and thereby secure the good will of the incoming tenants of these holdings, but I should be lacking in my duty to the House if I did not state clearly at the beginning of this experiment what our intentions are; and although I may be pressed from time to time to lower rents I must remember that I am responsible for the expenditure of this money, and I hope to hold the balance fairly.
I was asked one or two questions about co-operation. It seems to be peculiarly difficult to get men on the land to co-operate. There has been a co-operative movement in Scotland for some years pressing forward the demands and the advisability of co-operation in the interests of all concerned. It has met with some success by good will and voluntary
effort. I was asked by my Noble Friend and one or two other Members what class of produce would be obtained on these holdings. There, again, that is a matter entirely at the discretion of the tenant himself. It is for the tenant himself to decide the class of produce he will grow, and how he will make use of the small holding which he has taken. But while I am speaking on that point I am very anxious to make clear to the Committee that we have no intention of setting up small farms. We have no desire in this matter to enter into competition with the man who cultivates a farm. That is not our desire in any way. I hope I have given a very definite statement on that matter. I know many hon. Members are anxious that the State should not embark at this time upon the spending of money to create more farms while the cultivators of large farms are in a position of great difficulty. With that assurance, which I willingly and fully give here, I hope they will realise that the policy we are pursuing in this scheme is not in competition with the large farmer.
I was also asked as to the class of tenants and the selection. We are anxious to get the best tenants we can for these holdings. Nothing but the best will be chosen by my advisers. They tell me that they spend much time in choosing the tenants, and they attach importance that either the husband or the wife should have been closely associated with the land. They put great stress upon that. They also tell me that they go to the applicant's home and try to judge whether the couple will permanently stay on the holding. It is easy to complain, as hon. Members have complained—and I am not taking exception to it—that the numbers we are providing are few. We want to build well. We want to choose the right people for this scheme. No land settlement scheme in any part of the world has ever been rushed through on a large scale successfully. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] I have studied that problem very carefully. It is quite easy to make a splash and to put thousands of people on the land and to have that land a failure in future years, and a great loss to the State. Land settlement is a long, laborious and difficult process. It is a business proposition. In my opening remarks, when there were not many hon. Members present, I threw out a sugges-
tion that if any hon. Member, no matter of what party or to which county he might belong, was anxious to see land settlement in existence and to meet the tenants and discuss with them their livelihood, I would be only too happy to make arrangements for hon. Members to visit any settlement they desire.
This scheme is linked with our plots of land for unemployed persons. I am convinced that there is a deep desire in the minds of the people of Scotland to make more use of our land. There is a scheme which we started some 18 months ago. Before the year is out I hope to have some 1,000 plots for those people, a much larger number than we have today. I do not know what the future may hold for the scheme which I am putting before the Committee to-night; it will be for future Parliaments, or for future Sessions of this Parliament, to decide. I ask my Scottish hon. Friends to regard land settlement as a business proposition, quite apart from party politics. We are anxious to secure the assent of all parties in this House. If it is to be successful, land settlement must not undergo constant changes. I hope that nothing that I have said will stop or will hinder any hon. Member in any part of the House from giving unanimous consent to this Financial Resolution.

10.57 p.m.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: There were two specific questions which I put to the right hon. Gentleman and perhaps he will be able to answer them. One was to give roughly the number of holdings per year which this scheme will yield, and the other was whether the £25,000 set aside for housing every year will still be available when this scheme is in operation.

Sir G. COLLINS: The sum for housing will be the same in the future as it has been in the past. I have been asked as to the number of holdings. The number of holdings created in the great effort after the War was about 275 per year. From 1927 to 1933 the actual number of new holdings created was 99 per year. Under this scheme, if we can secure the land which we desire and the tenants which we aim at getting, we hope to create 333 holdings each year, or 1,000 altogether.

Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) ACT, 1924.

Mr. SKELTON: I beg to move,
That the draft of the Order proposed to be made by the Minister of Health and the Department of Health for Scotland with the approval of the Treasury, under Section five of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1924, as amended by Section forty-three of the Housing Act, 1930, which was presented on the 28th day of February, 1934, be approved.

11.0 p.m.

Mr. MACLEAN: How long is it intended that the House should sit? It is now eleven o'clock, and there are two other Orders to be dealt with.

Mr. SKELTON: I anticipate that hon. Members will wish to discuss the Order that I am about to propose, and that will take a little time, but I have no reason to suppose that the next Order, the Aberdeen Milk Scheme, will demand much discussion. In these circumstances, we have great hopes that we shall be able to get both the remaining Orders to-night. There is no suggestion of any elaborate or severe criticism of the Aberdeen Milk Scheme. I hope that hon. Members opposite will find, seeing that we are now so familiar with these marketing schemes, that there is not much that remains to be said, and that the next Order will not take long.

Mr. MACLEAN: May I point out that we took up five hours on the first Order to-day and that the Order which we have just finished has taken three hours. We are now about to deal with a reduction in the subsidy for housing, and the next Order relates to an agricultural marketing scheme. The Order which the Under-Secretary is now moving is a matter which is going to be contested and on which a Division will be taken. Therefore, I want to know whether it would not be better to take it at a more reasonable time, when the House will be in a better position to follow the arguments of the hon. Member.

Mr. SKELTON: It would be better if my hon. Friend renewed his question after the discussion on the draft Order.

Mr. MACLEAN: That may be at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Mr. SKELTON: I hope and believe that it will not be necessary to discuss it for
so long a time as that. However, the sooner we get on with it the better.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Surely we are not going to go on with it to-night.

11.4 p.m.

Mr. SKELTON: In moving the Order, let me recall the fact that the Housing Act, 1930, provides for a periodical review of the subsidy paid under the Acts of 1923 and 1924. Practically no houses are now being constructed under the 1923 Act. Therefore, it will be better if I deal with the 1924 Act. Under the 1933 Act, in Scotland the £9 subsidy payable under the 1924 Act both to private enterprise and to local authorities was brought to an end. There remains the question of what is to be the date for the completion of houses previously approved, in order to secure the full subsidy. The House will recollect that there are periodical revisions of the subsidy, and hon. Members are familiar with the revision that is now formally proposed in this Order. The revision is as follows, that as regards houses built by private enterprise in order to qualify for the £9 subsidy, they must be completed before the 31st March of this year; but, by the decision previously announced, so far as the local authority houses are concerned, the extension to 30th June was made known to the House. This Order is formally to homologate those two decisions.
The only matter of serious import which I think it necessary to put before the House this evening is what is to happen in the case of local authority houses if they are not completed by 30th June. Some months ago this matter was taken up with the Corporation of Glasgow in a formal way. We decided to fix the date of completion at 30th June, and not to extend it, and when the Glasgow Corporation, among others, were made aware of the decision, they informed us that perhaps 1,000 houses might remain uncompleted on that date. I should say at once that even so, apart from what I am going to say, these houses would be eligible for the £3 subsidy if completed before March, 1935, a date which would amply cover all of them. It might be represented, however, that a £3 subsidy, even with present building costs, was not as ample as £9 in 1924 and, therefore, in discussion with representatives of the municipal corporation of Glasgow early in the year we considered whether it would
not be possible to transfer any house uncompleted by 30th June from the 1924 Act to the Slum Clearance Act, 1930, whereby they would be secure of the subsidy which, as the House knows, is a generous one under the Slum Clearance, Act.
To-night I am in a position to announce to the House that we will most favourably consider any proposition that Glasgow or any other local authority puts forward for these houses completed before 30th June this year being passed for transference to the slum clearance subsidy. The House will realise that the Department of Health cannot by a wave of its own wand make that transference. The application must come from the local authority, and, to be quite fair and fully frank with the House, I should of course add that there may be cases where the local authority may think a particular housing scheme less suitable for the rehousing of people from slum areas than for the ordinary purposes of the 1934 Act. I have not had full information from the Glasgow Corporation on that point, but I think it is important that the House should realise that even if there are houses not completed, the opportunity is afforded to the local authority to apply for transference to be made. I think, though I do not desire to press local authorities in a matter in which the initiative is in their hands, that there is on the merits a great deal to be said for transferring to the Slum Clearance Act. The claims of those who are living in uninhabitable houses to be removed from their insanitary conditions at the earliest possible moment are claims of the greatest weight. Therefore on the merits most local authorities would feel that there is a great deal to be said for making such an application to us. On the merits yes, and on the finance still more so. The House is well aware that the slum clearance subsidy, which is given per person re-housed, works out at an average not of £9 but of £12 10s. In the circumstances I ask the House to pass the Order.

11.11 p.m.

Mr. MACLEAN: I want to be quite clear as to the point made by the Under-Secretary regarding the position in which cities or local authorities in Scotland like Glasgow, will be under this particular Order. The Under-Secretary
stated that Glasgow, in consultation with him, had made known the number of houses that would not be completed by the appointed day originally set out, and had asked for some continuation of the original subsidy to carry them on until the houses were completed. The number of houses, he said, was estimated to be about 1,000.

Mr. SKELTON: Those which would not be completed until after 30th June.

Mr. MACLEAN: Under the 1924 Act. Is the House to take it that the Secretary of State is prepared to consider an application from a local authority in respect of any houses that are not completed under that scheme, and to consider that application in a generous manner if the local authority can set up a good case why there has been delay in finishing the houses? Such houses, I understand, may receive the more generous subsidy paid under the slum clearance conditions. May I have a reply to that question, as the answer may save a lot of time?

Mr. SKELTON: To an application by a local authority to have any houses under construction transferred from the 1924 Act to the 1930 Act, we will give very favourable consideration. If it is transferred to the 1930 Act, of course it will have to be used for the purposes of slum clearance, that is to say, it will have to be used as an ordinary 1930 Act house is used, for the direct re-housing of people who have been living in a slum, or for indirect re-housing by the decanting process. The actual subsidy paid in any particular case will be based on the number of people displaced from the slum. In these circumstances the house will be a 1930 Act house for all purposes.

Mr. MACLEAN: That is just the objection. Personally, I am not concerned as to the people who are to be transferred from the houses. I do not want anyone to run away with the idea that either I or anyone else on the Labour benches, either above or below the Gangway, are so snobbish as to worry about the class of tenants who are going to be taken from the houses that they presently occupy and placed in these houses. These houses, however, which have not been completed, and which in many cases will be in process of construction, are at present included in schemes which have
already been projected and are laid out, and if, by this process of re-naming by the Scottish Office in giving this subsidy to houses not completed by the date in 1934, you are going to have in building schemes certain houses which the Scottish Office—not the local authority—are going to label for the purpose of obtaining this subsidy as slum clearance houses, and the people who are to inhabit those houses are to be taken from some slum area in the town. That is the position as I understand the hon. Gentleman's explanation. If I am wrong I shall be glad to be put right, because it would remove some of the objections to the plan if it could be put in another way. So far as I am concerned I object entirely to houses which are presently being occupied having to be labelled as slum clearance houses in order to obtain the benefit of the subsidy that is going to be paid.

11.18 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I think the procedure that is now being adopted is a little unfair. This question of the housing of the people in the cities in Scotland is one of the most important questions that have come before the House, and to bring it on at the end of the day, at 20 minutes past 11 is rather unfair. The Scottish Office are generally fair, but this is letting them down. The questions that we have already discussed were not contested, but accepted, and to bring forward a matter which raises vital issues is not playing fair. I would almost have preferred—I do not want to do it myself in my present position—that the Adjournment should have been moved on this issue. Even now I would appeal to those in charge. It may well be that we shall not discuss this matter over long, but, when it comes on late at night, we may in some way scamp the most important issue of the day in many respects.
The fact, which is not denied, is that Scotland is not housed as the great mass of the people would like, that is to say, the housing problem in Scotland is still acute. No one in Government circles has denied that. Each successive Minister has endeavoured to solve it and the problem is still acute. The Resolution says that the £9 subsidy which was granted in 1924 will be paid until 30th June. Thereafter it ceases and in place
of it comes the £3 subsidy. That is a thing that should not be debated at twenty minutes past eleven. It is too serious to the teeming masses not only of Glasgow but of other places. Some of the Lanarkshire towns and villages are in some respects as bad. There was an inquiry there the other week which disclosed things even worse than in Glasgow. The Secretary of State should have extended the subsidy. I do not criticise those who took up time on illegal trawling, because it was important for them. The Under-Secretary says, if houses are scheduled as slum clearance houses, they can qualify for the higher subsidy. The Glasgow Corporation are now dealing with a slum clearance programme apart from these houses, and these houses are deliberately built to be outside the slum clearance programme. Everyone admits that the slum clearance houses must have a closer proximity to public works in the centre of the town than other houses. Secondly, it is admitted that the slum clearance house has to have a cheaper basis of rent. These houses are not scheduled for it. It is no solution to say these houses can be put under a slum clearance scheme. Some of the 2,000 houses are part of another scheme; they are merely an extension of an existing scheme. Therefore, they will not be taken as slum clearance houses.
Recently the delay has extended to the Glasgow Corporation because they are faced with a dispute in the city. Men have come out on strike, and rightly, because they think that their conditions ought to be improved and their wages ought to be of a higher standard. Circumstances have arisen over which the Glasgow Corporation have no control, and to-day they are faced with the prospect that a number of their houses cannot be finished, a much larger number possibly than 2,000. A town council which decides to build as few houses as possible and is able to complete them will receive the £9 subsidy, but the local authority, which is urged on by progressive opinion and is prepared to make an attempt to provide as many houses as possible, may, owing to circumstances over which they may have no control, be left with a certain number of houses on their hands on each of which they will lose £6 per annum. The local authorities in Scotland are at least entitled to
consideration when by a certain date they submitted to the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of houses they required. Unless he can prove that the local authorities have deliberately delayed the completion of the houses, they ought to be allowed to have the full subsidy in reference to every house the Department sanctioned. I understand that no one can accuse the Glasgow Corporation of holding up their housing scheme through any fault of their own.
I am not speaking on the wider issue of the £9 subsidy as against the £3 subsidy, but I do say, seriously, that instead of making the position of housing more difficult, as he is by this proposal, the Under-Secretary should try and make the position as easy as possible throughout the whole of Scotland. This matter has been badly handled and I trust that even now the Department will not make the work of those who are looking after housing matters on our town council and devoting a lot of time voluntarily to it, more difficult than it is already. Even if 500 of the houses in Glasgow rank for slum clearance, they are left with 1,500 at £6 each, and that sum will have to be met by increasing rents or by the ratepayers. It is impossible to increase rents, and the ratepayers will therefore have to find the money. I think that the Government should withdraw the proposal in order that the Under-Secretary may have an opportunity of interviewing town councils in Scotland, large and small, and discuss the matter with them. It would be much better for him to talk things over with them during the Easter Recess, and a frank interchange of views might lead to an agreement between the local authorities and the Government on this matter.

11.34 p.m.

Mr. LEONARD: I do not want to traverse any of the points which have already been put before the Under Secretary to-day, nor enter into the general Scottish position as he has received the observations of the Association of County Councils in Scotland, on the 26th of February last, but I should like to press upon him one or two points. It was stated that it was anticipated that the provision of houses under the 1924 Act would be provided by private enterprise. That expectation has not been fulfilled,
and so far it does not show any signs of being able to cope with the problem. Hence the change which we are now discussing. The hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) has referred to the 1,000 houses that would be required, but the Director of Housing in Glasgow on 28th November last reported that in his opinion 2,100 houses would not be completed in the period laid down.

Mr. SKELTON: That was 2,100 for March.

Mr. BUCHANAN: But it is still going back.

Mr. LEONARD: Yes it is still going back and there is the stoppage. The point I wish to make is that it is time the Government realised that they have certain responsibilities in this matter. With regard to the 1924 houses approved by the Department of Health, the total number approved is 4,587 but while they were under construction or pending the start of construction, there were concurrent schemes for rehousing operations under the Glasgow Corporation representing 3,497 houses. That has to be taken into consideration, especially when we bear in mind that the Government were, rightly, urging further and increased activity in that direction. Added to that we have had private builders who were also attending to houses under the 1924 Act and were eager to get them completed as quickly as possible. They had under their jurisdiction 3,144 houses, so that the Glasgow problem is not confined to the corporation houses which are being built under the 1924 Act but includes all these houses to which I have referred. With regard to the urge given to the corporation to be more expeditious in the provision of houses, the manner in which it has come on and the sort of spurt that took place has caused a shortage of materials, in addition to which there has been the strike, referred to earlier. Then restrictions by the Government on timber from Russia and things of that sort have been put forward by the corporation as legitimate points. The Under-Secretary should consider more fully than he has done, the representations made to him in the weeks which have just passed. I would also remind him of his meeting with the local authorities when he said that the whole
question would come up for review again in the summer of 1935, and I suggest that the full terms of the 1924 Act should be applied, until the completion of approved schemes or the date he contemplates review, whichever be the first. The attitude adopted by the corporation in Glasgow and by authorities in other parts of the country, should have more consideration and discussion than he is giving it at the present time.

11.39 p.m.

Mr. STEVENSON: I do not think the offer which the Under-Secretary has made is nearly as valuable as he thinks. In fact I think it is of very little value to some local authorities. Any local authority can get the capitation grant for people housed under slum clearance schemes and the Glasgow Corporation, among others, can easily earn the grant which is being offered just now if they like to make use of the houses to house people taken from the slums. But we have to remember that there is another housing problem, quite as important as slum clearance in some big cities and that is producing houses to take people out of the overcrowded houses. When this scheme was approved in December, 1932, the Glasgow Corporation produced a scheme for 4,500 houses to house people, not from the slums, but rather from the over-crowded areas. If they do not get the larger subsidy, they will have to meet a great loss in rehousing such people. They will be in a much worse position even than under the offer made in this Order because it really means that they cannot from now onwards produce houses for people from the overcrowded areas except with the £3 subsidy. It must be remembered that these houses must be let at from 6s. to 6s. 6d. per week. If the grant under the 1930 Act is substituted for the subsidy to which the corporation are entitled under the 1924 Act, it will make the provision of houses for the lower-paid workers by Glasgow and other local authorities more and more difficult. The subsidy is really being transferred from the Exchequer to the local authorities and that will increase the rates. That, in turn, will mean that any subsequent houses will be built at a loss, and a snowball will be built up.
I hope that the Under-Secretary will reconsider the position which he has taken up, as I do not think it will give any advantage to the local authorities, particularly the local authority of Glasgow. He has to consider that there are various reasons why these houses have not been completed in Glasgow. There was, first, the trouble in getting materials; there was a shortage of bricks and seasoned timber. Then there was the recent dispute. It may be that the corporation undertook too many houses in December, 1932, but the Department have approved of the scheme, and I should be very disappointed if the corporation did not get the full subsidy which the Government undertook to give them in December, 1932.

11.43 p.m.

Mr. ANEURIN BEVAN: I intervene with great diffidence in a Scottish Debate, but I want to ask a question which will have some bearing on future housing statistics. I gathered from the speech of the Under-Secretary that he was making a present to local authorities. I cannot understand why it is being made, because he said that the housing schemes which are sanctioned to June this year would qualify for a subsidy of £3; if they built under the 1924 Act it would be £9; and if under a slum clearance scheme £12. I cannot understand why a concession is being made, because there will not be an increase in the number of houses, but merely a difference in their classification. If the local authority accepts the offer now being made and builds houses as slum clearance houses, they will be classified as such, and this will increase the number of houses that Scotland will have built under the Slum Clearance Act.

Mr. SKELTON: And the number of people displaced from the slums.

Mr. BEVAN: It is suggested that we should pay out more money from public funds in order to allow the Secretary of State to say that in Scotland more houses have been built under slum clearance schemes. It means that more money is being paid in order to make political propaganda, because the houses would be built anyhow. He said to the local authorities, "If you call these houses slum clearance houses we will give you
£12 10s. per house"—only in order to qualify as slum clearance houses they must designate the people, to use the remarkable phrase which has been coined, as having been "decanted." We are going to pay the local authorities not for building additional houses but in order to allow the Secretary of State to claim that more houses are now being built under slum clearance than was formerly the case. I would put this simple question. Are these houses, if they attract the £12 10s. subsidy, to be classified in future as houses built under the Slum Clearance Act of 1930 despite the fact that they were initiated under other schemes? That has a distinct bearing on the housing statistics for Scotland. It will boost up the slum clearance schemes and depress the other schemes, and tend to persuade the public that the Scottish Office is more active in slum clearance than is actually the case.

11.47 p.m.

Mr. MACLEAN: Why is it that the Minister is going to give the local authorities a larger subsidy if the houses that are not completed by the appointed day than he would give if he were giving them the subsidies to which they would be entitled were they all completed before the appointed day? Why should the State be prepared to pay more money for a house completed after the appointed day only if the designation of the house is changed and the designation of the tenants who will occupy it? If you are prepared to do that, why not come right down to it and say you are prepared to consider the continuation of the subsidy you have been in the habit of paying—

Mr. SPEAKER: Order! The hon. Member has already made one speech.

11.48 p.m.

Mr. JAMES REID: I should be inclined to agree with the hon. Members who have criticised the Government were it not for the fact that we know that a Bill to deal with slum clearance is to be produced shortly. [HON. MEMBERS: "When?"] We have been assured that there is to be a Bill for England in the immediate future and I feel certain the Scottish Office will not be behindhand in introducing a corresponding Scottish Measure. Accordingly it seems eminently desirable to bring to an end at the
earliest possible moment the subsidies under the Acts of 1923 and 1924. It is plain that those Acts have not achieved their main purpose. They have built houses, but they have not contributed directly to the solution of the overcrowding problem, which is the problem alongside slum clearance to be solved at the moment. As I see it the purpose of the present Order is to bring to an end the subsidies under the Act of 1924, to clear the ground for a new and comprehensive scheme for dealing with the problem of overcrowding. We have been assured that such a scheme will be brought forward, and I have no doubt whatever that that assurance will be carried out.
The hon. Member for Govan (Mr. Maclean) has criticised the transfer from the 1924 Act to the 1930 Act, of a certain number of houses, and has pointed out that it will mean an additional subsidy from the Government. A larger number of houses must be built under the 1930 Act; why should we not take time by the forelock, and, instead of building 1,000 new houses, why should we not seize upon 1,000 houses that are available?

Mr. MACLEAN: Is the hon. Member so certain that the 1,000 houses which he thinks he is going to take over, under this new scheme and the new theory, will all be situated together? Is it not the case that the houses which are uncompleted are scattered over a number of schemes, and are in the middle of schemes which are under previous subsidy rates?

Mr. REID: That may well be so, but there is no compulsion upon a local authority to move people direct out of the slums into new houses. The process which has been described as "decamping" is a perfectly legitimate way of carrying out the 1930 Act. That process ought to be made far more use of. It is a proper thing to put the people out of the slums into the older houses at lower rents, and the people out of those older houses into the new houses.

Mr. MACLEAN: The Under-Secretary for Scotland does not agree with that.

Mr. SKELTON: My hon. Friend is quite wrong.

Mr. REID: To judge from the Under-Secretary's published pronouncements in
this matter, he agrees entirely. It seems only common sense to kill two birds with one stone. You have a man in the slums who wants a better house, but is unable to pay the rent of a new house; you have a man in an intermediate type of house who could afford a little better house. Put the man from the slums into the intermediate house which he can pay for, and put the man from the intermediate house into the new one, thereby solving two people's problems, instead of only solving one person's problem by putting the man from the slum into the new house. To deal in the way I suggest with 1,000 houses is to take 1,000 people from the slums to houses with comparatively cheaper rents, and then there are 1,000 houses for the urgent scheme of slum clearance earlier than under the 1930 Act. You have got rid of the 1930 Act altogether.

Mr. BUCHANAN: These new houses in Glasgow were built to relieve overcrowding. The hon. Member says, "Use them for slum clearance." People who are in shockingly overcrowded circum stances are not to get houses. In other words, decent people who do not happen to live in a slum area but are overcrowded are not to get a house because of that. The hon. Member says: "Never mind them; just let them stay on. We will give other people the right—"

Mr. REID: I am afraid that I have not made my meaning plain. The whole basis of my remarks is that we shall have, in the immediate future, a Measure which will make a much more direct attack upon this problem of overcrowding, for the man who is not in the slum.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Has the hon. Member seen it yet?

Mr. REID: Of course, I have not, but I happen to know a little bit about this problem, because I had the honour of sitting on a Committee which was dealing with it. The Under-Secretary will tell us, as the Parliamentary Secretary has done in England, that there is a Measure in preparation which will be introduced in the immediate future. The hon. Member for Gorbals knows as well as I do that the Act of 1924 has not had a direct effect upon overcrowding. What we want to-day is a measure which will
attack the problem of overcrowding in a more direct way than the Act of 1924; and it is with the object of clearing the ground for that Measure that I support the Order which is before the House to-night. I think the Under-Secretary will be able to assure us that something on the same lines as the English Measure which we are promised for the solution of the overcrowding problem will be introduced in the immediate future for Scotland.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Are we to presume that the contemplated legislation that is to be moved in this House will carry with it a subsidy?

Mr. REID: I think we have certainly got to assume that, because—

Mr. BUCHANAN: We shall now get the terms of the Bill.

Mr. REID: My right hon. Friend knows perfectly well that a Bill is now in preparation for England in which a very considerable subsidy will be allowed. Everyone in this House is well aware of the fact that the Scottish housing problem is much more difficult than the English housing problem; and therefore we are well entitled to say that we are looking forward to at least as great a subsidy as, and probably a greater subsidy than, England will get.

Mr. SPEAKER: I do not think we can go into that matter. I am afraid the Debate has become somewhat ragged.

Mr. REID: I support the Government whole-heartedly in this matter, and chiefly with a view to clearing the ground for the new. Measure which I am sure we are all fully aware is in active preparation.

Mr. BUCHANAN: Would it be in order for me, in view of the last speech, to move the Adjournment of the Debate, on two grounds: First, to get a statement how long we are to sit, and, secondly, whether we may now have a statement on the policy of the new Bill?

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has already spoken in the Debate.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I was going to ask if I was entitled to move the Adjournment on the grounds that—

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has already spoken. He cannot make another speech.

11.58 p.m.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I am under a disadvantage, as compared with my hon. Friend who has just sat down, in that I have no information as to the contents of the Bill which it is the intention of the Government to introduce.

Mr. REID: I hope I did not say I had information about the intentions of the Government, for I have not. I merely said that I had a certain amount of information about the type of the problem which is confronting the Government.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: Then the hon. Member must not expect us to take his beliefs and assumptions and surmises as a very safe foundation on which to consider the proposals which the Government have brought before the House this afternoon. Nor can I share his engagingly symmetrical conception of the slum clearance and overcrowding problem. The idea that you can take slum dwellers out of their old houses and march them to very slightly better ones and fit them in there, and go on until eventually you reach people who are sufficiently well off to be worthy of the new houses, is one to which we have grown accustomed in housing debates for 10 or 12 years past. It is an engaging theory, but somehow or other it does not work out in practice. I should like to associate myself with the protest made by the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) against the situation in which we find ourselves. The Scottish Office always tries to be fair in these matters, and I make no complaint against the Secretary of State or the Under-Secretary; but the procedure under these Orders is bad. Here we have a complicated Order which, as you said just now, Sir, has produced a rather ragged discussion. That is because we do not understand it or its implications. It has been brought before the House extremely late at night at a time when there is no possibility of adequate reports to inform public opinion in Scotland. Procedure on these Orders is bad and unsatisfactory, especially when discussion is begun so late. In asking us to accept the proposal contained in this Order the Under-Secretary said that the need in Scotland now is that of houses to replace slums and not to erect houses under special conditions within the terms of the 1924 Act. I would ask the House to realise the real seriousness of the situation put by the hon. Member for
Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stevenson) in regard to overcrowding in our towns and cities. These houses ought not to be transferred, as the Under-Secretary gleefully contemplates, to slum clearance.

Mr. SKELTON: At present these houses are not specifically allocated for dealing with overcrowding.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: No, but they are houses which are being provided under special conditions. They are special condition houses under the 1924 Act, and the hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. J. Reid) suggested that that Act is inadequate to deal with overcrowding. These houses are to be provided under special conditions to make them available to meet the overcrowding problem, and they ought not to be transferred as the Under-Secretary desires to slum clearance. I agree with the point made by the hon. Member for Govan (Mr. N. Maclean) that you are actually giving a premium to the authorities who delay in completing their houses, when you allow them to transfer to the more favourable terms under the Slum Clearance Act. You are reducing the number of houses that will be available, because the authorities have the duty put upon them to clear the slums. We have been assured by the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary that they are going to see that the local authorities discharge their duty. We ought to have these particular houses to deal with overcrowding and sufficient houses to clear the slums. What the Under-Secretary is doing now is to take these houses which ought to be used for relieving overcrowding and allowing them to be used to reduce the burden upon the local authorities for dealing with slum clearance. We want both. We want all the houses we can get to relieve overcrowding and the necessary number of houses to clear away the slums. Why has this difficulty arisen? We moved in Committee an Amendment which would have given the local authorities a longer time in which to complete their schemes, but it was scoffed at, laughed out of court in the Committee upstairs. We wanted extra time but the Government and their majority in the Committee refused the time. If we had been given more time we should have had proper schemes prepared and put through to deal with overcrowding and adequate schemes for slum clearance.
The houses that will be affected are the houses that were approved but not begun before the 15th December, 1932. I imagine those begun must have been finished by now, and therefore the question is how many were approved but not begun and have not since been completed. The hon. Member for Stirling (Mr. J. Reid) said the 1924 Act was unsuitable and inadequate to deal with overcrowding. So far from that being the case, if the programme of housing on which we were engaged in 1932 had been pushed forward vigorously, you would have broken the back of the whole problem of overcrowding in something like 6½ years. The hon. Member shakes his head, but his duty was to challenge the figures when I gave the whole calculation in detail in this House and was nowhere challenged. The fact is that we were just getting the benefit of that 1924 Act with the lower costs of housing.
In January, 1932, I summoned a conference of Scottish local authorities in Edinburgh, and we started with a great push which gained momentum all through 1932 and worked up the number of houses being constructed to 24,000 in April 1933. Since then we have the operation of the 1933 Act, which has produced exactly the consequences I foretold in the Debates, that the number of houses has rapidly fallen off until now the number of houses approved but not begun in January has fallen to 3,441—lower than in any month in 1931 and 1932. It is not the 1924 Act which is inadequate, but the 1933 Act which in the opinion of Sir William Whyte, the greatest authority on housing in Scotland is a dead letter, and has been denounced as useless by the Association of County Councils and the Housing and Town Planning Institute. The fact is that we can ill afford to lose any of these houses, and I regret that this proposal should be brought forward at this time of night. It seems to me that it must have the effect of reducing the amount of subsidy available for houses to meet this urgent problem of overcrowding, and, although the number of houses may be small—we are awaiting the figures—the principle is undoubtedly bad, and, if it goes to a Division, I shall oppose it.

12.10 a.m.

Mr. SKELTON: With the permission of the House I should like to reply to one or two points. We have had an interesting debate on this subject. It has travelled over a rather wider ground than the terms of the Order. I want to start with my Friend the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). He made an admirable debating point, but it overlooked the fact that local authorities in all their schemes knew well that the Acts of Parliament laid it down that there would be a revision of the subsidy following 1933.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The local authorities did not know the subsidies were going to be revised.

Mr. SKELTON: I will deal with one point at a time, and I should have thought that the hon. Member might be more interested in his own point than in somebody else's. It is part and parcel of the structure of the Housing Act that the subsidies are periodically reviewed, and every local authority in formulating its programme is well aware of that fact. That is the answer to the debating point of the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan). On the general question, some hon. Members seem to think that the transfer of houses from one Act to another would be our action. On the contrary it is entirely in the option of local authorities. If they prefer to leave the houses that are not completed by 30th June under the 1924 Act, they will get the £3 subsidy, but if the houses are suitable for slum clearance purposes it will be open to them to apply for transfer of the houses from one Act to another. Some hon. Members seem to think that that is an unparalleled performance. Not at fell. It very often happened under the local authority housing schemes that the Act under which subsidy was to be paid was not finally settled until the houses were near completion. The proposition does not startle me as it appears to startle some hon. Members. This Order affects only one topic, and that is the amount of money to be paid by the State on houses the maximum number of which is immutably fixed. I have been asked, Why give the bigger subsidy for the 1930 Act houses? The answer is that that is in the structure of the 1930 Act, passed by the Labour Government, which provided that for the purpose of clearing people
out of uninhabitable houses a larger subsidy was given with the object of allowing the houses to be let at a lower rent to the persons displaced. Of course if it is convenient to any local authority, with regard to a number of houses which may be uncompleted by 30th June, to adopt the suggestion I have made, they will find in all probability that as they are using the houses for a new purpose they will be getting the larger sum, and that subsidy will help to make up the difference between the £9 and the £3.
I am satisfied that on all social and hygienic grounds the transfer from the 1924 to the 1930 Act is not in the least a retrograde step, but is a very valuable one. It will be of Teal value if it turns

Resolved,

"That the draft of the Order proposed to be made by the Minister of Health and the Department of Health for Scotland with the approval of the Treasury, under Section five of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1924, as amended by Section forty-three of the Housing Act, 1930, which was presented on the 28th day of February, 1934, be approved."

out that a considerable number of houses are not completed by 30th June. I will not weary the House by giving figures showing the numbers of houses actually concerned under this Order. It is sufficient to say that if the subsidy period ran till 31st March, so far as Glasgow is concerned, some 3,000 houses would be affected. If the period were extended to 30th June, the number would be reduced to 1,000, and, as regards the whole of the rest of Scotland, there seems to be no reason to anticipate that more than another 1,000, at the outside, will be affected.

Question put.

The House divided: Ayes, 90; Noes, 14.

Division No. 176.]
AYES.
[12.16 a.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Gower, Sir Robert
Radford, E. A.


Agmw. Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Guy, J. C. Morrison
Ramsay, Alexander (W. Bromwich)


Bal[...]lie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Hanley, Dennis A.
Ramsay T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Ba[...]dwln, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Harbord, Arthur
Rankin, Robert


Banks, Sir Reginald Mitchell
Haslam, Sir John (Bolton)
Reid, James S. C. (Stirling)


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Remer, John R.


Bateman, A. L.
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Rlckards, George William


Blinded, James
Horsbrugh, Florence
Rcpner, Colonel L.


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Brass, Captain Sir William
Inskip, Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas W. H.
Runge, Norah Cecil


Broadbent, Colonel John
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Kerr, Lieut.-Col. Charles (Montrose)
Russell, Hamer Field (Sheffield.B'tside)


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Law, Richard K. (Hull, S.W.)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Leckle, J. A.
Scone, Lord


Burnett, John George
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Skelton, Archibald Noel


Christie, James Archibald
Lleweilln, Major John J.
Smith, Louis W. (Sheffield, Hallam)


Cochrane, Commander Hon. A. D.
Locker-Lampson, Com. O. (H'ndsw'th)
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Collins, Rt. Hon. Sir Godfrey
Mabane, William
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Colville, Lieut.-Colonel J.
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Stones, James


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Strickland, Captain W. F.


Dalkeith, Earl of
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D.
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Davidson, Rt. Hon. J. C. C.
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Templeton, William P.


Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Duggan, Hubert John
Milne, Charles
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Dunglass, Lord
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)
Wedderburn, Henry James Scrymgeour-


Elmley, Viscount
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Morrison, William Shepherd
Wise, Alfred R.


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Womersley, Walter James


Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.



Fremantle, Sir Francis
O'Donovan, Dr. William James
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Gledhill, Gilbert
Palmer. Francis Noel
Lieut.-Colonel Sir Lambert Ward and




Major George Davies.




NOES.


Bevan, Aneurln (Ebbw Vale)
Grundy, Thomas W.
Wilmot, John


Buchanan, George
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Daggar, George
Maclean, Neil (Glasgow, Govan)



Dobbie, William
Mainwaring, William Henry
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Edwards, Charles
Sinclair, Ma). Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)
Mr. Duncan Graham and Mr.


Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)
Leonard.

Orders of the Day — ELECTRICITY (SUPPLY) ACTS.

Resolved,

"That the Special Order made by the Electricity Commissioners under the Electricity (Supply) Acts, 1882 to 1933, and confirmed by the Minister of Transport under the Electricity (Supply) Act, 1919, and the Public Works Facilities Act, 1930, in respect of part of the rural district of Stokesley, in the North Riding of the county of York, which was presented on the 22nd day of February, 1934, be approved."—[Lieut.-Colonel Headlam.]

Orders of the Day — MARRIAGE ACT (1886) AND FOREIGN MARRIAGE ACT (1892) AMENDMENT BILL.

Read the Third time, and passed.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Tuesday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Twenty-five Minutes after Twelve.